


Kamen Rider Utsura: The Lost Levels

by starofjustice



Series: Kamen Rider Utsura [3]
Category: Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider Decade, Kamen Rider Den-O, Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2020-12-16 11:56:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21035864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starofjustice/pseuds/starofjustice
Summary: Kensei Hidenaga thought he knew what was going on. He'd escaped a painful death and the other Riders even started thinking of him as friends.Then the entire world went away.And in the new one, his brother, his greatest hero, was still alive...





	1. Chapter 1

**Hey everybody! The set up for this little sidestory is in Chapter 29 of the main one! If you haven’t read that far yet, please do!**

**Share and enjoy!**

There was nothing.

And yet, somehow it all seemed so natural.

Kensei’s eyes, strengthened by the power of Kiiko’s merged with him, scanned over the storm of rippling beams of light all around him. One color one second, one shape, totally different the next. Through all the bright bands of chaos he could see shapes here and there. Houses, forests, cities. People, animals, the bottom of the ocean, the brown wasteland of a desert. Nothing that stayed in view long enough to be identified, even with the power of a Navi reinforcing his sense.

But there was one exception: there was a desert, with a bullet training driving through it. A bullet train with huge red windows on the front, and even more strangely, the tracks formed out of nowhere in front of it. Even as it passed over canyons and empty riverbeds.

His mind seemed to be going fuzzy as he floated through this chaotic attack on his senses of colors and input. Kensei could only register that he was “outside,” but outside from _where_, he couldn’t begin to guess.

Slowly he felt a power building up behind him, pushing him along through the morass of color. Maybe _dragging_ was the right word, since he saw something strange then: a stream of bubbling purple matter, giving off an awesome power that seemed somehow familiar. A power that seemed like it had hooked him and was dragging him behind in its wake.

Then it was over.

XXX

He hit the ground and skidded until the rough bricks he landed stopped him.

Kensei gasped in surprise and pain as he pushed himself up. The skin on the bottom of his forearms had scraped almost away, but the shock of his sudden reappearance was the main thing on his blurred mind.

Everything was coming back in a hurry. He was Kensei Hidenaga, probably better known as Kamen Rider Utsura, a hero who got his powers from videogames, of all things. He’d been trying something with his friend Kiiko, who was a “game Navi,” to see if they could combine. To see if she could give him control of a measure of her special powers.

And then there had been something else… a wall of light, then he’d heard the bell of a train coming into the station, and he’d been pulled through a weird cloud or something of dancing lights and pictures.

Now there he was, on a street outside a skyscraper he was pretty sure wasn’t that far from his school.

And the street was empty, because a monster was smashing her way down it, knocking cars and bikes flying.

It was a short, clunky-looking robot covered in dull grey armor plating. The head on the shoulders looked vaguely feminine, with full lips under the soft blue LED eyes, but mainly thanks to the flat strips of metal like hair sticking out from the top. Instead of hands there was a fan built into a cage on the end of each of her wrists.

Powerful fans, though. The robot aimed one and a whooshing tornado whipped across the street, yanking cars and debris off the ground and pushing them down the street.

Right at Kensei.

Suddenly something slammed into him, but from the side, and he was rolling across the street a safe distance from the terrifying winds the robot had created. As they stopped, he realized it was a young man in a white doctor’s smock who’d tackled him. A doctor wearing red jeans and a shirt with the image of a red sports car speeding away, under the words Out Run.

Kensei recognized him. It was Emu Hojo. But the reassuring smile he was giving Kensei seemed new…

That wasn’t even close to the most surprising thing that happened to him then, because Emu wasn’t alone. Standing across the street was a young man, looking to be in the middle of his university years. His jaw was strong, his smiling blindingly confident, and his black tanktop revealing toned biceps. One hand was covered in a bright green plastic glove with a small pink lever on the back, and in his other hand was a darker green Gashat.

In that moment Kensei’s heart seemed to stop.

It was Yuuma Hidenaga.

Kensei’s brother.

“Is that all they called us down for? I can handle a little one like this myself, Emu!” Yuuma laughed before he hit the trigger on his Gashat. “**Mighty vs. DYNAMighty!**” it yelled. “**Bravest versus BIGGEST! Chase and plan! Run and crush! Who’s the strongest?! Die-die-DynaMIGHTY!**”

“**Henshin!**”

Yuuma slid the game’s circuit panel into a slot on the back of his gaudy glove and pulled the pink lever, making it emit a loud “**Ga-CHAN!**” Armor started forming on him, block shapes crawling together and spreading across Yuuma. The same chestplate and track shoes combination as most all Kamen Riders, but huge green fists like boxing gloves formed over his hands, and curved quills over the forehead of his mask like Ex-Aid had, but even taller and leaning even farther over to the right. Huge green spikes, their tips bent forwards, stuck out of his shoulder armor.

“Kamen Rider Bruiser! _Crushing_ Bugster infections!” Yuuma said, a laughing tone to his words just like before. Just like always. “You’ll never blow _this _Rider away, Vorutekka!” He ran straight at the robot, swinging his giant fists like windmills.

“I can blow harder than any Bugster you ever fought, Rider!” Vorutekka replied, the words almost impossible to understand under the metallic whine of her voice.

“Keep it down! Somebody might hear you and think you’re coming onto me!”

Emu pulled on Kensei’s arm. “We have to get you to safety,” he warned. Kensei didn’t even hear him.

He yanked his arm out of the doctor’s hands and ran down the street to where the fight was picking up, his Dual Gashat in his hands, the knob seeming to twist on its own with his need to join in.

“**Demon Ninja!**”

Another tornado, even bigger than before with Vorutekka holding both of her fans together, ripped down the street and covered Kame Rider Bruiser. He dug in his feet and held up his big fists in front of himself in a defensive posture until the tornado finished roaring past. A few dead leaves and pieces of trash paper were impaled on the spikes of his shoulders and the quills of his mask, but Bruiser himself hadn’t budged an inch.

Suddenly Bruiser crouched down and launched himself at Vorutekka, giant-fists-first. They crunched into the middle of her torso and left a terrifying dent in the metal. Vorutekka pointed her fans at the ground and created another tornado that pushed her off the ground. She swung her right arm forward and the column of wind sliced through a building. The top half tumbled down on top of Bruiser, who crouched and jumped straight through the falling edifice, his large fists shattering most debris before it could hit him and do much damage.

As Bruiser came exploding out of the other side of the toppling building and it smashed into a heap of rubble in a horrendous cacophony of dust and concrete, Vorutekka pointed her fans forward and flew away from the battle. “I’ll blow down the whole world…after repairs are complete!” she declared. She didn’t seem to see Kensei, who was right under her by then with Emu chasing after him.

“You’re not supposed to be running _closer_ to the Bugster!” he called, leaning forward to try to grab Kensei’s shoulder. Then suddenly Kensei stopped, and Emu ran into his back, bounced off and landed hard on his own back. “That hurts…” the doctor moaned almost comically. He stared then as he recognized the Gamer Driver Kensei was fastening around his waist.

“**Henshin**.” The Dual Gashat in his hands locked into its slots on Kensei’s belt. In a flash Kensei was clad in black and purple armor, clutching a pair of kusari-gama with gleaming curved blades in his hands. “Let’s play,” he said in a menacing whisper.

He jumped to a car, jumped back off at an angle that carried him to the wall of a building and vaulted off of that so he was coming up at the hovering robot. Vorutekka had just finished tracking Utsura’s movement when he slammed into her. He dug the blades of his weapons into the already big dent Bruiser’s punch had left there and _pulled_.

Utsura’s blades tore into her armor exposing the wires and dull the grey endoskeleton underneath. Just as Vorutekka had finished her metallic yelp Utsura had already jumped away, the blast of wind meant to obliterate him only tearing the corner off a building down the block instead.

And while her attention was focused on that, Bruiser hit her from behind like a wrecking ball and knocked her out of the air.

A short distance away Utsura landed, swinging down from the cord on one of his kusari-gama used as a grappling line. He didn’t even have a chance to pull it free before a huge shadowy shape came down from a jump right in front of him.

It had thick arms and legs, ending in big pink fists and neon green track shoes. At the elbows and knees were golden spring-like coils against the black armor covering the rest. In the chest itself stared out a pair of giant angry orange eyes, below rows of golden spikes on the shoulders.

Between those giant golden spikes was a face he had seen before, the oversized eyes and the curved pink quills on the forehead of the mask of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid.

“Slow down there!” said Emu Hojo’s familiar voice. “Just who are you?”

“I’m Yuuma’s brother, Kensei!” Utsura answered.

Ex-Aid’s big eyes seemed to get even bigger. It felt like even the eyes in his torso were staring wider at Utsura in disbelief. After a minute Ex-Aid seemed to find his voice. “Yuuma’s brother isn’t a Kamen Rider…”

XXX

Down the street Vorutekka leveled one of her fans at Kamen Rider Bruiser’s face, who smashed a fist into the weapon and turned it into a twisted piece of wreckage.

But that gave her a few precious seconds jab the other fan right up against Bruiser’s mask and cut loose with all the firepower she had left at point-blank. The cone of a tornado whipped up right around his chin and his head was surrounded by an explosion of countless tiny HIT graphics from the cutting winds.

Bruiser’s cry of pain was drowned out by the roar of Vorutekka’s tornado. He was blown into the air and hit the side of a building hard enough to leave a crater then slipped off and landed in a hedge on the ground. Vorutekka took aim with another air-blast to finish him off.

Suddenly there was a *crunch* of metal caving in and her arms were yanked up toward the sky. Curved blades stuck out from her shoulders, and her arms creaked and snapped off as the blades recoiled back to the armor between Kamen Rider Utsura’s shoulders. He pressed his index fingers together, one over and one under, and said, “**Fission Jutsu**.”

Two clouds of smoke appeared on his left and right, and two more Kamen Rider Utsuras appeared out of them. In perfect synch all three of them detached the giant golden shuriken on their chest armor. In perfect synch all three of them threw them, impaling Vorutekka between the shoulders and through each leg at a precise point to paralyze her.

On the other side of the street Kamen Rider Ex-Aid stood and watch, shaking his head in disbelief. The Rider was fighting on their side, but…

“I will—blow—you—all—” Vorutekka rattled helplessly.

“That’s enough of that!” Bruiser cut her off. He awkwardly moved the lever on the back of his right arm with his boxing of a hand. “**DynaMighty Critical FLATTEN!**” it shouted. He lifted his right arm and brought it down on top of the immobilized Vorutekka like a jackhammer, pounding her down into a flat square of metal.

Over Bruiser’s head the familiar graphic appeared: GAME CLEAR, with its familiar little victory tune playing along with it.

He wasn’t looking at it, though. Instead he was looking at the ninja Rider who’d appeared out of nowhere. “Who are you?” Bruiser asked, his voice slow with curiosity, not suspicion at what he’d just seen.

“That’s a question I’d like answered too,” Ex-Aid said, jogging up in his bulky mecha suit. “Because I’m not sure I can quite believe the answer he gave me.”

Both of them stared at him their suits’ giant anime eyes. Utsura pulled free his Dual Gashat and let his armor disappear with a strangely tense “**Gashuuuun**” from his belt. Bruiser looked at him hard for a minute before pulling the Gashat out of his own gear and turning back to normal, a confused look on his face. Ex-Aid was the last, seeming satisfied by his ally letting down his guard, but looking just as confused as Yuuma did.

It wasn’t helped when a pink light flowed out of Kensei’s ear and formed into a nervous-looking girl wearing the same school’s uniform as him.

“Kensei?” Yuuma asked and walked in a circle around him, taking in every detail. “You are Kensei…kind of. But Kensei isn’t a Kamen Rider. Is he?” Yuuma looked over at Emu, who shrugged. “What’s going on here?”

XXX

Kiiko’s hand squeezed Kensei’s again as the clock ticked past another minute and their wait in the examination room officially passed half an hour.

“When do they let us out of here?” she asked.

The answer came a second later when the door opened and Emu came in carrying a clipboard, Yuuma behind him but also a pair of doctors they recognized, Hiiro Kagami and Taiga Hanaya. “Well, somehow it’s true,” Emu announced. “Everything checks out. Height, weight, blood type, fingerprints, DNA…he’s Kensei Hidenaga. Even the family addresses you told us match. That is, one of them did. Your parents are still married, Hidenaga-san.”

Kensei nodded slowly. “Well, a lot of things seem different.”

“That’s a crazy story you told these two, kid,” Taiga said, proud and dismissive just like Kensei was used to hearing from him.

“But the evidence doesn’t lie,” Yuuma went on and stepped forward from the doctors. “You really are a Kamen Rider too, Kensei-kun.”

Emu spoke up. “Please understand, we’re not mad or suspicious of you,” he said with a friendly smile. “We’re just very confused. Yuuma’s been a Kamen Rider with us for just a little over a year, to help deal with Bugster appearances when we’re unable to respond. You say where you’re from he’s a victim of game monsters called…Corrupture, though? Not Bugsters? And you have two other Riders who help you fight them?”

Kiiko squeezed down on Kensei’s hand again, and he squeezed it back in support.

“Right,” he answered, then swiped through a few pictures on his phone. Showing himself, Kiiko, and his allies Doku and Yoshoku sitting around the meeting area in the CR Ward, the Kamen Riders’ secret base under the hospital.

The one, he’d been told, the old Riders had used to treat victims of the virus that created game monsters. Maybe they’d buy his story if they saw he’d been there already with his friends…?

Yuuma suddenly stepped behind the chair was Kensei was sitting and clapped his hands on his little brother’s shoulders, and smiled down at the surprised Kensei. “Let me worry about him, guys.”

“You’ve got enough to worry about already,” Hiiro pointed out. “You’re the one who’s on-call in case the rest of us can’t respond.”

Yuuma punched Hiiro playfully on the shoulder, and the stone-faced doctor actually smiled. “Hey, I’m not exactly babysitting them. It’s another Rider! Having him around will make us _more _powerful, not distract me having to look out for a civilian!” Yuuma explained. He looked down at Kensei again. “Besides, I have to. This is family.”

“If Yuuma’s vouching for you…” Taiga muttered.

“…then welcome aboard!” Emu said with a grin, extending his hand for Kensei to shake.

Smiling back, Kensei did.

XXX

“This is weird, but…cool!” Yuuma said and squeezed his brother’s shoulder as they walked down the city street. On Kensei’s other side Kiiko walked along, smiling, but Kensei could see an uncertain look in her eyes.

She had gotten more reserved lately, when she used to be the most bombastic cheerleader he’d ever seen. Had Kiiko gotten that shaken up when he’d been poisoned?

“Well it’s weird, yeah!” Kensei agreed. “I have no idea what I’m doing here…or…”

Yuuma clapped him on the back, and Kensei stumbled. Kiiko caught him with a hand on his chest, and looked up at Yuuma with surprise on her face.

He laughed again and shook his head. “I’m sorry! I’m just really excited! I’ve been telling CR that Kensei-kun would make a good Rider when he finishes school, and here he is, and he’s an even better Rider than I am!”

Kensei blinked and looked away, his eyes wide like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Are you okay?” Kiiko whispered to him.

“Kind of?” Kensei asked in reply. “I mean, this is all a lot to take in, isn’t it?”

She nodded slowly in understanding. Yuuma nodded too, his earlier excitement fading. “Back where you’re from I’m gone…but I’m not really dead, right?” he asked his brother.

Kensei nodded. “Right, because the Corrupture use their victims as host bodies when they attack, but when they’re defeated they go back into this kind of ‘space’ until later.”

“Like the ghosts in Pac-Man,” Yuuma suggested.

“Something like that,” Kensei replied.

Yuuma squeezed his shoulder and gave his little brother a supportive smile. “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out. Sounds like one of those parallel universes or something, you know?”

But Kensei didn’t answer him.

Through the crowd, Kensei saw a man in a dark suit with dark red hair. The flow of people seemed to part around him as if they automatically knew they should. He was fiddling with some kind of device: a box that was pink on the front with two circles that looked like lenses, and black on the sides. The man looked up and locked eyes with Kensei then, and it was like a magnet was pulling their heads to look at one another.

Without warning the feeling of the pull was gone and the man vanished into the crush of pedestrians.

XXX

When Kensei finished their second round of tea he was managing to smile more.

“You feeling okay now, Kensei-kun?” Yuum asked anyway, a look of gentle concern punctuating the question.

He nodded. “Yeah. I don’t think I’m ready to meet mom and dad yet, though. Definitely not ready to meet…_me_ yet.”

“Where will you stay?” Yuuma asked him.

“In CR. I know how to get in,” Kensei answered.

Yuuma waved as Kensei stepped away to head back to Seito University Hospital. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow, okay little brother? This is so cool!”

Kensei waved to his brother until Yuuma got down to the end of the block and turned around to start jogging home. He turned away from the vanishing shape of his older brother and back in the direction of the hospital, but suddenly Kiiko grabbed his arm.

She whispered to him, “Kensei-kun, I don’t like this place.” Kiiko’s eyes darted around nervously, like she was expecting an attack or some other danger to appear suddenly.

“Why? What’s the matter?”

Kiiko look around again and clung to his arm. “Something’s wrong with it, I don’t really know how to say it. Like there’s no foundation and it’s shaking around when we walk, maybe.”

“Really?” he asked, but she sighed a little in relief when she recognized the cautious undertone to the word. “You can feel it or something?”

She clung a little tighter to her friend, the hero, the only thing she knew could rely on in this strange world. “Yes. I didn’t want to say anything before since you were so happy to see your brother again, but I don’t think it’s safe for us to be here…”

“All right, I’ll be careful, but what can we do? We don’t know how we ended up here, so how would we get back?” Kensei asked, cupping her cheek as he did to help her stay calm. “I’ll keep an eye out for anything that’ll help, I promise, but…”

“Please,” she said and looked up at him with a pleading glimmer in her eyes.

“I will. I promise,” he said again.

She shut her eyes and nodded with her cheek rubbing against his arm.

XXX

Just on the border of the district, a lady stepped out of a cab and carefully re-secured her flu mask. Right before she coughed violently right into it, and a flickering wisp of dark orange escaped and whirled away on the wind.

It passed through a park, empty with the oncoming evening. The wisp curled and danced through the air, almost as if searching for something. Or someone.

Even then, after the Kamen Riders emerged victorious over its worst manifestations, the Bugster Virus had not been completely eliminated. Like any virus, its greatest drive was to find a place where it could spread.

Something spread to _it _instead.

From out of the sky a spiral of bubbling purple particles spun around the tiny cluster of Bugster virus. It dove right through, absorbing the orange fleck before speeding away into a dark corner to swallow.

Orange and purple static wrestled over each other as the purple stream piled on top of itself into a floating blob.

The blob was made of the new strain of the virus. It had evolved more than the virus in this world. However even evolved, its survival was threatened by its enemies growing more and more powerful. It needed a previous example of its kind, so that excample could deliberately be evolved into something greater.

Something the Kamen Riders would never expect…

The blob shook, pockets of sludge falling off it all over the ground, then the top popped open and spewed something out of the top that splattered on the ground a few feet away.

Right away the wad of sputum stretched up, solidifying into a grey-clad ninja warrior. His bare fingers and the slit for his eyes showed cracked orange skin and bloody red eyes marked with only a black sclera. Across his chest was a bandolier slung with shuriken of a dozen shapes but all gleaming like new. In both hands he held a dark metal kunai dagger.

Then, incredibly, the blob spoke to him. “G. Ninja, legendary dark warrior representing the great game of Knock-Out Fighter,” it said in a powerful voice. The voice of Hourakou Byougen, the heart and mind of the Corrupture Virus. “You’ll be the first…”


	2. Chapter 2

Just in time, he jumped back out of the way.

A huge scissor-like claw, its steel armor gleaming even in the dim light of the underground tunnel, shattered the platform where he’d been.

Kamen Rider Bruiser charged up to where the giant claw was embedded into the concrete. An echoing CLANG sounded up and down the tunnel as his awesome strength knocked the claw loose and it tumbled off the edge and back into the filthy water below.

Suddenly another shiny metal claw jumped up from the water, swinging at Bruiser like a giant sword. He sucked in a nervous breath and held it while he raised his fists above his head for just the right second.

It came. Just before the sharp steel edge of the claw had a chance to hit him Bruiser slammed his big fists down on top of it. The claw bounced on the concrete with a massive dent in the center from his heavy gloves.

Off the platform the dark sludge below was bubbling. Bruiser’s goosebumps rose at what he was about to see. This was a boss fight he’d never unlocked.

Out of the slime rose a fearsome battle machine. It stood on multiple legs like a spider’s, but those still mostly hidden by the filth below them. Its upper body seemed too big to be held up by such thin legs, a big box covered in red armor but with a slightly green tinge thanks to the filth where it’d been hiding. Its eyes were tiny black dots near the flat top of its torso and staring straight at the Kamen Rider.

But the biggest thing about it—literally—were the claws like giant scissors Bruiser had already been fighting, attached to the body on thick cables.

It was Kani-Brekker, the terrifying optional boss from Gekitotsu Robots. Boxing robots were a scary enough idea, but one that was easily three times his size and built like a crab…

And then the robot attacked, his body spinning and lashing out with his sharpened claws that ripped channels through the concrete walls around them. Horrible grating noises echoed up and down the tunnel. Bruiser wanted more than anything in the world to cover his ears but instead he charged down the platform to attack.

One of the huge claws came at him, blocking out the Rider’s whole view of the tunnel. It swung even faster than before and he desperately fell to the ground instead of risking being cut in half.

Fighting Kani-Brekker was supposed to be a daunting challenge when the match was just a game.

Fortunately for Bruiser, he didn’t have to stick to the rules of a secret boss fight here.

An icon appeared in front of him, showing a bright white sledgehammer with pink and green bumpers on the sides of the head. Bruiser nudged it with one glove, and the weapon dropped into his hand. “**Gashacon CRUSHER!!**”

Once it was really there the hammer was huge, as tall as Bruiser easily and with a head even bigger than his boxing gloves. He gripped the handle and as one of Kani-Brekker’s claws came spinning his way again, he braced his feet like a baseball player, then swung his weapon right at it.

A deafening ring sounded out as weapon met weapon and Bruiser was kicked back so hard his boots dug little ditches in the floor until he stopped. Kani-Brekker’s claw jerked back and embedded itself in the wall.

The Bugster monster started yanking on his trapped claw and it slid a few inches on the first try. Obviously Kani-Brekker wouldn’t be trapped for long.

It was a good thing it wasn’t actually Bruiser’s job to beat him.

XXX

“_Can you see him now_?”

“…kind of,” Kamen Rider Utsura replied to the tiny voice in his ear, only catching himself that he didn’t need to say it out loud after he’d said it. He could see the blinking orange blip representing the Bugster they’d tracked down, but the maze of sewer tunnels all seemed to blur together before his eyes, one level vanishing into the one below until it was all just one confusing mishmash of pathways he couldn’t possibly decipher. “I don’t know, Kiiko-chan. I guess I can’t handle all this information yet.”

She sighed a little, what about, he tried to wonder. He didn’t have long, though. “_I guess we’ll have to go with the Chibi Gamers after all_.”

That had been his idea. To use the little sprites to guide his attack on the Bugster below. Kiiko had wanted to rely on the empowered senses she gave him when they combined, but parts of it, he was still getting used to.

“_Are you sure this will work_?” Kiiko asked doubtfully.

“It’d be the last thing _I’d_ be expecting,” Kensei answered, still only realizing he didn’t have to say it for her to hear it.

He had on the light blue armor of his River Harmony game, the one about a master fisherman. But over that was the armored maroon beret and backpack of his Mighty Sketch add-on game. It split open and a slim metal tentacle ending in a big metal fish hook slipped out. The tentacle snaked down the open manhole next to Kamen Rider Utsura.

Right under the street stood the first Chibi Gamer, the pink creature that was the famous Mighty. He waved to the hook on the tentacle and ran down a tunnel at top speed with Utsura’s tentacle extending along to follow Mighty-chan. As he went around a corner, it followed. For two minutes Mighty-chan led the way gradually downwards through the sewer network.

Finally, Mighty-chan’s winding path stopped next to where a tiny black bicycle with one neon green tire and one neon pink one was standing up. It was Stunt Bike, the Chibi Gamer of Shakariki Sports, and the locator Mighty had been tracking the whole way down.

And he was staring into the area where Kamen Rider Bruiser had been cornered. Kani-Brekker was trying to close one of his huge claws around the head of Bruiser’s hammer, the other claw impaled into the wall around his waist, trapping the masked hero.

Utsura’s tentacle zipped forward and hooked itself under one of Kani-Brekker’s arms.

Then it _pulled_.

XXX

The middle of the street exploded, showering asphalt everywhere.

Kani-Brekker, his legs flailing uselessly in the air trying to find anything to stand on, crashed down hard. The metal tentacle that’d dragged him through almost a mile of sewer tunnels finished recoiling into Kamen Rider Utsura’s backpack.

Dazed and battered, the Bugster looked up just in time to see the Rider holding up a new game.

“**Aqua Beat!**”

“Let’s play!” Utsura smirked inside his mask and loaded his strongest game.

River Harmony’s blue armor faded to an even brighter blue as Utsura’s equipment disappeared and the pieces of his Aqua Beat Gamer locked down on his suit. Utsura grabbed the long handles of his twin Gashacon Torches. Then the music started.

Kani-Brekker attacked, jabbing with his sharp claws like a boxer at the much smaller Kamen Rider. Moving with music Utsura jumped and dodged out of the way, slapping bubbles with his torches and absorbing the notes inside. He kept attacking, punching gashes into the street as he tried to slice Utsura in two. But the nimble Rider seemed to become a blur, avoiding the devastating punches as he hit more bubbles and absorbed their energy with ducks, slides and jumps in perfect tune to the music.

Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Thirty-five. The number of holes in the street climbed while Utsura hit more and more drifting bubbles. Kani-Brekker was spewing foam as he failed to hit the dancing Rider, Utsura’s torches glowing like the sun by the time they get to the end of the street.

“**PERFECT**,” announced the voice from his belt.

But still Utsura didn’t attack. He jumped on top of Kani-Brekker’s head and jumped off again just in time to avoid the giant claw that smacked into the Bugster.

“You’re so tense, crab-dude!” Utsura laughed. “This is a _party_! Have some _fun_!”

Kani-Brekker screeched and covered the ground at his feet with white foam from his mouth. He chased after Utsura who nimbly ducked and dodged the swipes of the Bugster’s claws with the same inherent rhythm as before.

Until they were in the middle of the street, the holes from Kani-Brekker’s earlier failed attacks all around them.

Then Utsura clapped his torches together.

Beachballs started pouring out of the sky, all patterns and colors, right on top of Kani-Brekker. The Bugster swiped at them in surprise, popping a few, but they kept coming. Soon confused-looking cartoon sharks and squids with human eyes started landing on Kani-Brekker. A surfer, board and all, landed on top of the pile of cartoon marine life and flicked up his shades in bemusement. A pair of dazed-looking hula girls landed on the end of the surfer’s board and his look of confusion turned into a grin.

All of that weight was too much for the perforated street Kani-Brekker’s attacks had made. The ground creaked and caved in around the Bugster monster, burying him in asphalt debris up to his waist.

“_Now! Finish it off!_” Kiiko’s voice rang in Utsura’s ear. He didn’t need her to tell him, but smiled anyway. “**Beat Critical Cutback!**” his belt announced as Utsura went in to finish off his enemy.

Kani-Brekker looked up just in time to see the sun blotted out by a huge tidal wave growing higher above him. Riding a surfboard down the middle was Kamen Rider Utsura, drumming along in the air to a beat only he still had the power to hear. The Bugster spewed a cloud of foam straight up in fear.

Right before the force of a hundred tons of water crashed down on top of him.

Utsura’s board skidded to a stop on the street. Over his ahead a familiar message appeared, and a familiar tune played.

“**GAME CLEAR.**”

XXX

A few minutes later the pile of rubble where Kani-Brekker had been defeated. A Kamen Rider with huge green fists and oversized sledge hammer held in one of them dragged himself out. He saw Utsura standing on the edge of the pit and shook his head.

“Glad you could FINALLY make it to the fight!” Bruiser said, but it changed into a chuckle at the end.

“That other one took a little long,” Utsura admitted. He bent down to grab one of Bruiser’s hands and helped pull him back up to street level.

The brothers both unloaded their Gashats and Kiiko reappeared in a flow of pink light from inside Kensei’s ear. Yuuma looked at it, shook his head and smiled.

“So you handled that other one too? Not bad! I mean, you’re almost caught up to me!” Yuuma chuckled.

“What do you mean, _almost_?” Kensei asked in disbelief, but smiling at his brother all the same.

Yuuma reached over and teasingly mussed Kensei’s hair with his big powerful hand. “I _mean_, since we started doing this I’ve beaten 7, you’ve beaten 5. I know math wasn’t your best subject, but try and keep up with me, okay?” he smirked.

“…has it been that long?” Kensei asked, a distant look creeping into his eyes. It really had been a few weeks already since he’d been taken to this world where his brother was still around, and was a Kamen Rider too.

And Kensei was his partner.

They were fighting monsters together.

He still couldn’t believe he could say that, Kensei thought with a smile.

Suddenly Yuuma interrupted his thoughts with a slap on the shoulder. “In case you forgot, we still got another Bugster sighting we need to check out! Hurry up or I’ll keep up the lead!” Yuuma said and jogged away. Kensei started to follow, but Kiiko held onto his arm.

“There’s something else here,” she warned him quietly.

“Is it something dangerous?”

“…maybe,” she whispered back.

That was when Kensei saw someone standing in a shadow. It was the strange man he remembered seeing before; the one in the dark suit, fiddling with a pink and black box hanging from around his neck. It clicked at something.

“Don’t get too comfortable in this world,” the man said, his voice droning emotionlessly.

“Why not?” Kensei asked. Kiiko slipped behind him as if out of fear of the man.

He looked up at the two of them. “Because it doesn’t belong. I’m here to destroy it.”

“Destroy it?!” Kensei snapped. “Who the hell are you? One of those Bugsters??”

“A Bugster?” the man said, still with no emotion. “I’m just a passing-through Kamen Rider.”

Before Kensei could pursue him a rippling silver wall formed in front of the emotionless man, and disappeared again as soon as he’d walked through it.

Yet his voice hung in the air for a second. “Remember that.”

“Hey Kensei, you coming or what??” Yuuma yelled. Shaking his head, Kensei ran to catch up with is brother.

XXX

Doctor Hojo was smiling at the man laying in the hospital bed across the room. Kensei had seen him look like that enough times now to know the patient was cured. The man sat up and laughed with relief, saying something to Yuuma who was standing next to the bed. Kensei had seen that happen enough times to know it was the man’s everlasting gratitude.

“Kensei-kun,” Kiiko whispered into his ear. “Can we _please_ go look for clues tonight?”

“Tonight I’m meeting the rest of the family,” he replied. “It took me this long to get used to this place enough to think doing that.”

She squeezed his shoulder, an intensity to the gesture Kensei could only dimly remember feeling before. Back when he’d been about to die from that snake bite, and she might’ve lost her only friend…

“Something isn’t _right_ about all this,” she insisted. Kiiko had been using that same line on him every night since ending up in this world, or whatever it was. Every night she’d been getting a little more insistent.

He shrugged. “Maybe not, but what would we be looking for? We don’t know how we got here so how would we know what to find to go back? And do we even _want _to go back?” Kensei asked her.

“What do you mean?” Kiiko asked, leaning away from him in surprise at his answer. “What about the other Riders? You told them they should start working together instead, and now you’re just going leave them?”

“If they _are_ working together, and they’ve got all the old doctor Riders to help them too, what’s one less Rider helping out somewhere else?” Kensei answered. “Besides,” he pointed, “look at that.”

Across the room the patient had sat up and smiled as he shook Yuuma’s hand energetically. Emu patted the patient on the shoulder and put the clipboard with his report back into the rack on the end of his bed.

“…what?”

“He’s cured. Since we beat the monster that came from his infection, he’s all better and he gets to go home,” Kensei explained. “But every time we beat a Corrupture, the person just goes back up into that portal with all the other victims. Nothing ever changes, the bad guys just get stronger. Here, what we do actually makes a difference.”

Her eyes widened, her face tightened a little in horrified surprise. “Don’t you think that’s _why_ we have to go back?? If they already have things under control here, the ones back home need all the help they can get figuring out an answer!”

“Don’t _you _ever get tired of just fighting the same stupid battles over and over, and never getting anywhere?” Kensei asked her in reply.

“Kensei, what’s gotten into—”

“Hey Kensei!” Yuuma called, interrupting them. “Come over here, he wants to thank you!”

“I’m coming!” Kensei called back. He shook the patient’s hand and was almost washed out the door by the patient’s flow of gratitude.

Kiiko slipped out of the CR Ward, still not believing she’d heard what she had.

XXX

It used to be Kiiko Mishiranu would get nervous going around by herself. Without Kensei there to protect her if a Corrupture monster showed up. Especially knowing she was…_something_ not too different from what the monsters were, and they might seek her out because of that.

The thought of being forced to become something like _them_, some maddened beast built like a shell on a helpless human. It terrified her. There was no other word in her mind to describe the feeling of what she thought the Corrupture would do to her if they caught her.

When Kensei had been around, she’d always sure things would all right. He always sounded like the hero from a game, like when he trying to convince her they should get Rune and Sling to work together with him. Like when he didn’t give up even though the Corrupture were getting more powerful, or when he was dying of a poisoned wound and it started catching up to him.

The time when Kensei had almost succumbed to his poisoned wound, Kiiko had to face the hard fact that there might be things too much for him to handle. That maybe he wouldn’t always be there to keep her safe.

What she was still trying to figure out was what she’d do if that turned out to be the case.

Suddenly7 a tingle of energy ran up her spine. Her eyes seemed to hum in their sockets, and through all the pedestrians around here she could see a faint glow around one man coming down the street in her direction.

As he got closer the glow turned a bright blue, and even more strangely it wasn’t like when she could recognize a Corrupture or a Rider Gashat from their power. The blue glow seemed to just _frame_ the man coming closer. There was the mundane spark she could see of the person underneath, but it was different than with a Corrupture, like the person was just asleep, instead of their mind being completely turned off by the power of the malignant creature using their body.

And that was when Kiiko realized this strange man wasn’t just walking in her direction. He’d broken away from the crowds and was walking at an angle right toward her.

He had on a black suit and tie, both looking expensive and freshly pressed. A thin pair of spectacles balanced on his nose. A blue streak ran through his hair, which disrupted the cultured feel of the rest of his look.

Then he stopped in front of her. “Ah, Kiiko-chan, wasn’t it?” he said in a calm, musical voice. “You’re even cuter in person than I’d heard.”

“I’m sorry, _who_ are you?” she asked, looking around quickly trying to find an unblocked way to bolt if she had to.

“Ah, let’s not waste time talking about _my _lowly identity!” he gushed, and before Kiiko realized what he was doing he’d kissed her hand. “I’d be flattered if you would agree to join me for dinner tonight. A beautiful girl should never have to bear the burden of loneliness!”

“I’m going to go now, mister. Thanks,” Kiiko said and backed away from him.

He sighed and ran his fingers back through his hair. “Ah, my charms failed me?!” he said good-naturedly, like he’d been expecting the answer. “Then maybe I can persuade you to join me if I tell you it’s about the safety of your friend, Kensei Hidenaga.”

“If you’re trying to hurt—”

But he held up his hand, and said quietly, “You can feel it yourself, can’t you? This world is infirm, and it’s only getting worse. If you stay, you’ll fade away too when it goes.”

“How do you know about that?” Kiiko asked, her apprehension toward the strange man fading slightly, but her apprehension about staying in this strange alternate world growing even bigger.

“It’s not safe to discuss something this important somewhere we’re surrounded by people,” he said, still just barely loud enough for her to hear, and glancing around at everyone hurrying past the two of them. Suddenly he lunged forward, slipped his arm around her back and leaned her backward in what might’ve been a romantic gesture. Not coming from a very strange stranger, that was. “You have _lovely _eyes, dear. Has anyone ever told you that?”

She knitted her brow and looked up at him in annoyed disbelief. “Are you serious?”

“It’s to make this look natural,” he replied. “What do you say we discuss this matter over dinner?”

Kiiko didn’t even get the chance to answer. Out of the corner of her eye, actually travelling right through the side of the building next to them came another presence like the one surrounding the man. An intense red one. She saw it crash into the blue glow around it, looking to her senses like it was shoulder-checking the blue one away.

Indeed the blue glow went bouncing away and the red one forced itself down on top of the man. Immediately he seemed to become someone else before Kiiko’s eyes. The blue streak in his hair had been replaced by a red one, and his hair was suddenly standing straight up in dangerous-looking spikes. His glasses had disappeared and his suit had somehow mystically turned into a long-sleeved white shirt with brown flecks all over it, baggy jeans and beat-up white sneakers.

“You’re taking way too long, turtle bastard!” he exclaimed up at the sky in a rough voice. And dropped Kiiko on the ground as he violently swung his arms apart to punctuate his outburst. Everyone around them had stopped and was staring at the strange and now _wild_-looking young man.

“…I’m going now,” Kiiko said and dashed back the way she’d come, running half-bent over until she managed to get her balance back.

“Hey you!” he called after her. “This is important! You need to listen!”

She didn’t slow down. It looked like her fears of being vulnerable on her own were well-founded.

A dozen thoughts were flying around her mind in a panic. Maybe Kensei was still at the hospital. Maybe he and Yuuma hadn’t left to visit their family yet like they’d been planning. Maybe if she ran a little faster she could still catch them on the way out of the hospital.

Maybe she could lose her pursuer in the streets. Maybe someone else would help her. Maybe there’d be a policeman going past. Maybe she should just defend herself. Maybe he was just weird, but harmless.

Maybe she could duck around the train she heard on the next street over and lose him.

Kiiko rounded the corner and realized there wasn’t a railroad crossing there. She could still hear the bell of a train pulling into a station.

Suddenly Kiiko was given a powerful shove from behind. She stumbled through a doorway and the train bell got even louder.

When she stopped, she was very surprised by her surroundings.

XXX

The unmistakable smell of a curry meal hit Kensei in the nose before they even got past the gate.

Yuuma smirked as his little brother clapped his hands over his nose in surprise, his eyes gone wide.

“Surprised by something?”

“I just…haven’t had mom and dad’s curry in a while. Dad’s is okay by itself, but…I don’t know,” Kensei replied.

His brother’s strong hand patted him between the shoulders. “Well, tonight we’re celebrating, so let’s enjoy ourselves!”

Kensei smiled up at Yuuma. His idol, his role model. And now a fellow Kamen Rider.

He still couldn’t believe it. Being a Kamen Rider was actually kind of _fun_ now, instead of always being a battle where he could never seem to make any progress. Even if the Riders got more powerful, their enemies would just get even more powerful in response.

And they’d still never saved anybody who was just a victim. The people who were forced to become Corrupture monsters just went back to where they were held captive whenever they were defeated. It was like trying “win” Pac-Man; the enemies would just come right back, attacking even more ferociously every time the player cleared an area.

But here, the monsters were a symptom of a disease. He killed the monster and the person got _better_. Here people thanked him and told him they owed him their lives. Back home, Machina Vision’s Rider got all the good press because _he had a cool-looking sword_. Because the company that made his equipment didn’t have a bad reputation the way the one that made Kensei’s had.

And the biggest proof was walking up to the front door right next to him: Kensei’s brother was there. They were a team. The tragedy of all those people being lost hadn’t happened here…

“Hey,” Yuuma interrupted him, his face tightening a little. “No heavy thoughts tonight. We’re spending tonight with the family to celebrate all the Bugsters we took care of the last couple days. Relax.”

“It’s like you can read my mind,” Kensei chuckled.

“I’m your big brother, it’s my job to know what you’re thinking before you do,” Yuuma replied, his face lighting up again.

Kensei nodded and sucked in a deep breath through his nose. “I’m officially relaxed.”

Yuuma slapped him on the back again, then opened the door.

“Welcome home, boys!” a voice called. Kensei almost stepped back outside again in surprise. His father, the one who’d called to them, looked so familiar, and yet so different. He stood straighter, the bulge around his belly Kensei remembered from spending too much time in a chair was gone. He wasn’t even wearing his glasses as he turned around and faced them.

Kensei hadn’t even talked to his “real” father since they’d had a fight about Kensei being a Kamen Rider. After trying to be one had gotten the “real” Yuuma killed. Now, the man’s eyes were practically glowing as he saw them come in together. “Hope you heroes worked up an appetite today!” he chuckled. “Your mother put everything in the pantry into the pot tonight!”

“I did _not_!” Emi Hidenaga protested with a playful slap to her husband’s shoulder. He smiled at her and leaned back so they could kiss. Kensei couldn’t even remember the last time his parents had been able to share a house, let alone a room.

Both of them hardly seemed to be registering that their older son had brought home another superhero, Kensei thought. Let alone that he was an alternate version of their other son.

That was when Kensei noticed the last member of the Hidenaga family, sitting at the dinner table already. It was Kensei Hidenaga, but not quite the same as the one who was also Kamen Rider Utsura saw when he looked in the mirror. Hair a little longer, build a little slimmer. He tapped his fingers against the surface of the table and looked idly out the back window. To Kensei’s eyes, it seemed like his alter ego sitting there across the room was trying as hard as he could to avoid paying attention to the rest of them.

“Go ahead! Sit down, sit down!” their father urged. “We’re almost done anyway!”

“Ah…think I’ll stay here and help you finish up, tou-san,” Yuuma said. “You go ahead and get comfortable, Kensei. We’ll be there in a minute.”

That was Yuuma again, trying to make things at least a little less awkward for him. Kensei appreciated it, though. Was there anything that could be more awkward than meeting someone who was you, but still wasn’t?

He sat down at the table too, but off at an angle from the local Kensei. The alternate-Kensei, he supposed. He figured it would probably help not to be looking straight at each other and make this all even weirder.

“Hello,” Kensei said slowly. Even with all the time he’d been fighting Bugsters alongside his brother, this wasn’t a moment he could figure out how to prepare for.

“Hello,” alternate-Kensei said back, if anything even slower. “So you’re the superhero my brother’s hanging around with these days.”

Kensei shrugged. “I really don’t know what happened, but yeah, here I am.”

His other version looked at him for a minute without saying anything, then looked away again. “That’s great,” he said flatly.

“Is something wrong? Did something bad happen? In this version?...Actually, I guess you wouldn’t know what’s different between where I’m from and here, would you?” Kensei asked, feeling stupid as the realization set in.

“My family expects me to end up being a superhero now too,” alternate-Kensei said, giving his counterpart a few seconds of stinkeye.

Kensei scratched the back of his head uncomfortably. “_My_ dad kicked me out of the house when he found out I was a Kamen Rider. What’s so bad about it? Here you get to save someone from their infection then it’s over, where I’m from they just keep—”

“This _isn’t_ where you’re from,” alternate-Kensei hissed suddenly. “You think Yuuma plans on being a Kamen Rider _forever_? He’s doing it to earn extra money for university and have a good thing to put on his resume. Are _you_ going to be a Kamen Rider forever?”

Kensei sank back in shock at the harsh sentiment from his other self. “No, but it _feels _like forever sometimes,” he protested. “With the way we can beat the monsters, but they just go back into their portal, and the Corrupture can send them back as new monsters anytime.”

“Oh yeah?” the alternate-Kensei answered, his voice lower but sounding even angrier. “I never asked to be a Kamen Rider in what it’s like _here_,” he said. “I was thinking about going into something in game design. But now thanks to you showing up here and being out fighting with Yuuma all the time, all I ever hear at home is ‘We have _two _Riders in the family! Someday soon we can have _three_!’ ”

“Don’t you even care about Yuuma??” Kensei asked, taken aback. “He’s doing so much good!”

Alternate-Kensei sighed and sucked in a long, slow breath before he answered that. “_Of course_ I care about him! He’s my brother, and he’s always looked out for me. But I already know what I want to do. It isn’t being something like a Kamen Rider like he is, not even for a while. Nobody in the family talks about anything else since they heard about _you_ coming here, though. Even Yuuma…”

Kensei was speechless.

His alter ego kept going, though. “What’s wrong with not wanting to fight monsters, huh? Don’t Kamen Riders protect the world so people can do other things? What’ll you do when you there’s no more monsters for you to fight?” Alternate-Kensei looked away.

Neither spoke to each other for the rest of the night.

XXX

“Where am I?” Kiiko asked, something feeling even more _wrong_ about where she was standing, than the crumbling feeling of the world she’d just left. It was like there was nothing around her at all, somehow, but she could still sense a great, but faint, power all around her.

She was in a narrow, gently rocking room with white walls, small tables and chairs bolted to the floor.

A train car.

That was why she’d heard the train bell a minute ago.

Outside the oblong windows was an endless yellow desert, the sands seeming to throb with that same power she could feel surrounding the train car. The one she’d never felt anything like before, even in helping superheroes battle game monsters.

And she wasn’t alone.

At one of the tables was a dark purple monster, his reptilian face making her think a little of a dragon, with an upturned gold-colored mustache and long pointed ears, or crests, or something on top of his head.

He was staring across the car at her with frightening red eyes. It was more than a little offset by him holding a small toy, blowing streams of glistening soap bubbles at her. “Hi there!” he cheerfully called out in a surprisingly high-pitched voice. “Are you the princess?”

“What?” Kiiko asked flatly.

“Are you the princess?” the purple monster repeated. “The others said this is like a game where we have to save someone. Isn’t that usually the princess?”

Kiiko stared hard at the monster with his strange questions, and he tipped his head back and forth, making a noise she thought was a chuckle. She scanned him quickly: the glow he gave off showed a not inconsiderable strength, and had a “feeling” a lot like the power she’d felt around the man she’d just run away from.

There was none of the inherent hostility she was used to seeing in the Corrupture back home, or the Bugsters she’d been helping Kensei deal with the past few weeks. She wasn’t really sure what to call the feeling of his presence, it was so different from what she was used to.

“Don’t waste people’s time with your stupid questions, brat!” snarled the voice of the man who’d been chasing her, and Kiiko yelped as she whirled around to face him. A menacing red light flared in his eyes.

Then all of a sudden he collapsed on the floor. Standing over him was a bright red monster, covered in armor plating full of designs of what looked like the letter “M”. His face was like an oni’s with curved horns sticking out of his forehead and his mouth twisted into a vicious smile. Kiiko’s own eyes flashed, and her fears were confirmed. In a sense; there was a feeling of hostility there, but it was more…funny, she supposed the word was. The way the feeling seemed to tickle against her mind.

“She _looks _like the princess!” the purple monster argued back.

“Were you _expecting _one?” Kiiko asked, although it immediately occurred to her that was probably one of the stupidest things she could’ve possibly said, surrounded by a pair of monsters.

The purple one actually _danced _over to her side, jumping up, twirling as he moved over to her. He bowed, a white-gloved hand against his chest, then he fell to one knee and took her hand in his. “Don’t worry, princess. I’ll be your hero!” he chuckled.

“Brat, if I have to tell you one more time—” the red monster snarled and stomped closer, but suddenly a long blue staff tapped against his throat. The other end was held by yet another monster, this one bright blue, with a smooth head covered in scales.

The blue one brought back his staff and bopped the red one on the head with it. “You’re not helping, Momo-chan,” he said, in the same voice as the guy who’d come up to Kiiko in the street and started flirting with her.

Not even seeming to hear the red’s one angry roar of, “ ‘Momo-chan’?! Get back here, you turtle bastard!” the blue one walked over to Kiiko. She jumped back and bumped into the purple one. He chuckled then slipped in between Kiiko and the blue one.

“The hero has to protect the princess from scary monsters, Ura-sempai! You have to stay over there!” the purple one said, looked over his shoulder at Kiiko and winked.

“Scary monsters?! You asked for it this time, brat!” the red monster thundered.

“If you feel like fighting, you’ll have to do it outside,” a quiet but commanding voice said, its owner stepping into the car from behind the red monster. He was a remarkably plain person; balding, round-faced, middle-aged, but Kiiko couldn’t begin to guess at a number. Wearing a tan suit and walking with a scuffed black cane. He sat down at the table next to the door he’d come in through and eyed all the monsters suspiciously.

The red one laughed nervously. “Ah, Owner! We weren’t fighting, were we, turtle bast…Ura-san?” He looked over at the blue one for confirmation, who only looked away and leaned on his staff like a cane.

Seeing he’d be getting no support there, the red monster stepped over to the purple one. “Eh-heheh…,” he chortled, trying very desperately to sound friendly. “Ryu-chan, it’s not very nice to call someone a scary monster. Say you’re sorry.”

“I’m not saying sorry to the evil monster!” the purple one jeered and pointed his gloved finger right at the red monster’s nose. Where it would be if the red monster had one anyway. “I have to keep the princess safe! I’ve been listening to what Ura-sempai says about pretty girls!”

“Are you going to eat me?” Kiiko spoke up over the chaos of the colorful monsters around her. “If you’re not, can you at least tell me what’s happening??”

“Certainly, my dear,” the blue monster said, slipping his arm around her back and leaning her down again. “Perhaps in a more…_intimate_ setting?”

She shoved him off her. “Not over dinner. Now.”

The door the Owner had come in through slid open and a smiling stewardess in a white dress and black stockings pushed in a cart piled with cups and a pair of silver cannisters with spouts on the bottom. “Refreshment service!” she announced cheerfully.

“I’ll have my usual,” the Owner said. She placed a tiny dish with a mound of rice on top of it, a tiny flag on a toothpick sticking out of the top. He took a tiny spoonful and looked at Kiiko. “My dear, you are on the DenLiner, the most remarkable train ever made. The train that _travels through time_.”

Kiiko nodded once. “Your…friends? They talked about something I’ve been feeling myself for a while about that world back there. What’s going on?”

The Owner swallowed his spoonful of rice then went for another one. “An echo from a major shift in the history of the world passed along the stream of time. A king gave up his crown,” the Owner said, as if Kiiko had any idea what that meant. “When history was reverting to the way it had been, at certain key moments the chance to change what had happened appeared. A malignant presence from the world you came from noticed this, your ‘Corrupture’, and took advantage of the echo to create a world that might once have existed instead, if something important happened differently.”

“Coffee?” the stewardess asked Kiiko with a smile.

“Tea, actually,” Kiiko replied, and watched every move the stewardess made as she prepared it.

“Here you are!” the stewardess said as she held out a tiny cup and saucer. Kiiko took it and sipped it. The taste was normal, so she took another.

Owner cleared his throat for attention, around his mouthful of rice and sent a few brown grains scattering across his table. “Our train has been investigating other incidents where a new unstable timeline formed from one of these echoes, stabilizing things again. This one is…unique, unfortunately.”

“What do you mean ‘unfortunately’?” Kiiko demanded. “Have you been the ones destroying these other worlds?”

“No, they fall apart on their own and are absorbed back into the main timeline, usually within just a few hours,” Owner explained. “This one is unique because it’s the only one where members of the original timeline have found their way to the alternate. And it’s the only one that’s survived for so long because of the power of those visitors wanting to stay.”

Kiiko sipped her tea and didn’t say anything for a few minutes. It all sounded so intense. She’d been helping superheroes save their city, but there’d never been anything about other dimensions or branching timelines or anything.

“But it’s still falling apart,” Kiiko breathed.

“And you can’t be here when it does, my lovely,” the blue monster answered her. “You and your friend are supposed to save the world, in the timeline you came from. Sooner or later, this alternate time won’t be able to sustain itself, and if the two of you are here when that happens, you’ll cease to be.”

Kiiko gave the Owner a hard look. “Is that true?”

“It is,” he replied, not noticing as the toothpick flag on his food tumbled over. The stewardess held her hands to her face in a silent scream of dismay. “There’s nothing that can be done about it, but you and your friend _must_ go back where you came from. You’ve gained something important here, but without your contributions, your friends in your proper timeline likely can’t survive. The job they have to do is too big.”

“…what did we find that was so important?” Kiiko asked. The Owner didn’t answer her. He noticed the toothpick flag in his food had toppled over and gasped in horror.

The red monster growled and slapped his palm on a table. “We’re wasting too much time!” he shouted. “We have to go find that stupid friend of yours!”

He was pulled back away from Kiiko by the blue monster, who dragged the red one away and leaned Kiiko back again. “You’ll have to excuse Momo-chan, he’s an idiot,” the blue monster explained.

“What’d you say to me?!?”

“You can call me Urataros,” the blue one said, and winked.

The purple monster danced up. “Ryuutaros at your service, your majesty!” he exclaimed.

Kiiko shook her head. “I’m not the princess.”

Urataros tapped her on the shoulder. “You could’ve fooled me,” he said, then added quietly. “Maybe you should play along. It’ll make him more cooperative.”

She looked at him again, then sighed. “Let’s go.”

“Is Ryotaro up again yet?” Urataros asked.

Momo-chan nudged the unconscious man on the floor he’d been possessing before. He didn’t move. “Nope.”

Urataros sighed. “Unfortunately, that means…”

XXX

“…you all right, Kensei-kun?” Yuuma asked, his usual cheerfulness gone from his voice. His expression had tightened to show a hint of nervousness.

“Yeah, I guess.”

Yuuma looked at his little brother harder. “Kensei, we’re partners now. If something’s bothering you, you’ve got to tell me what so we can still do our jobs.”

“Maybe that’s it.”

“Hmmm?” Yuuma gently prodded.

Kensei looked up at his brother’s face, trying to take everything in. Yuuma was every bit the calm, strong, confident older brother he remembered. Fighting alongside him had been amazing.

“I’m just wondering about something he…you know, the other Kensei said. About everybody expecting him to be a Kamen Rider too.”

His brother nodded slowly. “Oh yeah? How’s he feeling about that?”

Kensei leaned back a little in surprise. “You mean he didn’t tell you?”

Yuuma shrugged. “He said he’d think about it, but it’ll be a while before he’s out of school and can really make the commitment,” he answered. “Did he say something more to you back there?”

“Well…that he doesn’t appreciate everyone just assuming he’ll want to do it,” Kensei replied. “I guess I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not my secret to tell.”

“Hey,” Yuuma said and rested a hand between his brother’s shoulders. “You can’t fix a problem if you don’t know about it. And being a hero’s something you could die doing; it’s not something you brag about to pick up chicks. You probably know that even better than I do,” Yuuma smiled.

For a little while Kensei didn’t say anything to his brother—his partner in battle now—after hearing what alternate-Kensei had said to him. About not wanting to be a hero when the time came.

When Kensei became a Kamen Rider, it was filling a very dangerous void. There were no others at all, and a new version of monsters had been showing itself. Nobody would doubt there needed to be new Riders, and he’d stepped up because he’d felt it was what his brother would’ve hoped Kensei would do.

Still, it’d been a choice he’d made. Something Kensei had accepted into his life. He and Doku and Yoshoku, all three of them. None of them had been pushed into being something as demanding as a Kamen Rider, days upon days, weeks upon weeks, by their parents. That was just stupid.

And he had to think that was the way it should be. Maybe someone could make a decision to become something like a Kamen Rider based on a desperate need to protect their way of life. Their loved ones. Their world. To make up for something in their past, maybe. But if they were pushed into it like some kind of school activity, didn’t that make whatever contributions they ended up producing kind of…fake?

Taking on powers wasn’t something someone should do lightly. It was a huge thing. Not something little. Not something to brag about to friends.

And probably, wanting something else out of life was okay.

“Yeah, I guess I can too,” Kensei finally answered Yuuma. “But Kiiko’s probably right, and it’s time for us to find a way to go back. I owe her an apology…”

“I’ll miss you, little brother,” Yuuma smiled and slapped him on the back again.

Kensei wondered even more if he should’ve said anything about that. About the world they were in being so “infirm”.

Then Kiiko walked by the Hidenaga house and the conversation quickly took a strange turn.

Yuuma waved and smiled at her as she jogged down the street. “Hey, Kiiko-chan!”

Kiiko ran up even faster and suddenly shoved Yuuma backward with a strength she’d never had before. She whipped around to look at Kensei, who saw for the first time her hair was swept back from the top of her head in spikes, a red stripe running up one side.

Just like the glow in her eyes as she glared at him.

“Idiot! Are you just going to spend all your time here playing around?!” she snapped at him. “What kind of warrior do you think you _are_, anyway?!”

“…what the hell’s going on?” Kensei demanded.

Kiiko didn’t answer. Not verbally. Instead she grabbed Kensei by the arm and started to drag him down the street, walking away as fast as she could.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Yuuma yelled and ran after them. Kiiko suddenly stopped and Kensei lurched into her back, bounced off and landed on his butt. She turned to face Yuuma, eyes glowing an even more threatening red than before.

“And what do you want?” she asked, half-growling with irritation.

“Kensei, is something wrong with your girlfriend?” Yuuma asked, not budging from where he stood.

Suddenly the younger brother jumped up behind Kiiko and pinned her arms behind her back. She gasped and struggled, but Kensei just held on tighter. “Yeah, there he is,” he answered. “And whoever’s doing it better tell me what. _Now_.”

All of a sudden Kiiko’s body jerked, Kensei blinked and suddenly she had on a black ball cap with the familiar pink GENM CORP logo on the front. A stripe of long purple hair stuck out down over her face on the left side.

“Sorry about Momo-chan,” she giggled and poked Kensei playfully on the nose. “He’s not very nice. Or very smart.”

Somehow Kensei was sure he could feel an air of intense annoyance as soon as she said that.

“We really do need you to come home now, though,” Kiiko said and danced around Kensei in a circle. She stood on one foot and twirled around, her skirt flaring out under her. “Come on! Race you there!”

Kensei squinted but started after her.

That was when he heard a sound like a loud POP in the distance.

Kiiko stopped and looked back at Kensei, as if seeing past him. “Hold up, Kensei!” Yuuma called out, looking down at his phone. “There’s a Bugster sighting! We gotta go!”

They were both almost knocked over as Kiiko ran through the two of them. “Oooh! Fight! Guess I get to show you I’m the best hero after all!” she laughed, then kept running.

The brothers gave each other very confused looks, and ran after her.

XXX

The scene was typical of a kaijin attack.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t still terrifying.

A few cars had erupted into flames already, and one drove recklessly through the people fleeing on foot. Yuuma grimaced in disgust when the driver skidded halfway across a T-junction and sped out of sight.

He had more important things to worry about, though. Hopping back and forth over the street were a pair of strange round monsters with stubby arms and legs. One was bright white and had a huge mouth that took up the entire lower half of his body, cute little fangs sticking out of the top and bottom. His eyes were just two little yellow dots in sunken pits in the top half of his body, and he had pointed ears where the tips were bent forward.

The other monster was black, with a small mouth turned down in an annoyed frown. His eyes were large, white with tiny pupils, narrowed in annoyance at something. He had a pair of curved horns sticking up from the top of his head, the tip of one snapped off leaving a jagged end.

The white monster bounced on his tiny legs across the street and crashed into a man who’d been trying to get away and knocked him down. Opening his already enormous mouth even wider, the monster exhaled a billowing white cloud over his helpless victim. Underneath him the man screamed and thrashed around then stopped. His head bubbled and warped until it became the strange roast turkey-shape of a lesser Bugster or Corrupture. It was a shiny white in color.

Just like the people who were stumbling out of the doors and alleys up and down the street around Kensei, Yuuma and Kiiko. Some shiny white, some shiny black like the other monster.

The three of them were surrounded.

“I don’t believe it,” Yuuma whispered. “It’s Shiro-kun and Kuro-kun, the enemies from Doctor Mighty!”

Kensei scowled and put on his Gamer Driver. “I don’t like the sound of that…”

“You shouldn’t,” Yuuma warned him, putting on his gauntlet. “They’re viruses. Viruses from something that’s already a virus…and it’s already spreading like crazy!”

In a second Kensei’s Dual Gashat was out in his hand. “So let’s do this,” he said.

“No, you get your friend out of here,” Yuuma ordered. “We can’t risk her getting infected too. Who knows if they can even treat her?”

“I’m wondering if maybe we’re already too late,” Kensei muttered, staring disbelievingly at Kiiko’s long lock of purple hair. He still took Kiiko by the hand and ran for the only opening he could see.

Yuuma locked his Gashat into the slot on his gauntlet and hit the switch. “**Henshin!**”

A blast of power pushed the groups closing in on Yuuma back, his armor solidifying, turning him from a mere human into Kamen Rider Bruiser.

“Hehehe…one Rider!” Shiro-kun laughed. His giant mouth seemed to get even bigger in an evil grin. “One Rider thinks he’ll stop us!”

“Hrrrrmph,” grunted Kuro-kun. “He’s an idiot. Like every other human. Let’s just crush him and get on to the rest of this stupid city…”

Shiro-kun shook his head in disappointment, which meant shaking his entire body. “Can’t you take a little pride in your job like the rest of us?” he asked, but obviously didn’t expect an answer. He bounced up to Bruiser and fell flat when the Rider threw a punch at the top of his head. Kuro-kun came bouncing up next and sprayed a mouthful of blackish smoke right into Bruiser’s face.

He stumbled around, blinded by the smoke and the skin even inside his mask starting to tingle painfully. “Hrrrrrgh!” A second later his vision was clearing enough to see a big white shape bouncing at him. At the last second he yelled and turned to throw a punch at Shiro-kun, catching the monster right in the middle of his huge round face.

Around them there was a sound like an echoing WUMPH. Shiro-kun’s face deformed in as Bruiser’s huge fist connected with it. Then the Bugster went somersaulting backward in an arc that brought him down right on top of a dozen or so of his own infected followers, who were still closing in on them all.

“Have some more, Rider,” Kuro-kun grumbled, then spewed another mouthful of smoke over Bruiser. His skin tingled even worse and patches of black and white were forming on his armor. A cold chill ran up Bruisher’s spine as he realized they were moving.

“I was immunized when I had my compatibility surgery,” Bruiser said, trying to sound defiant. “You can’t infect me.”

“It’s our job to try,” Kuro-kun said indignantly, almost as if he was as opposed to the idea as Bruiser was. “It’s what a virus _does_.”

Bruiser tried to suck in the smallest breath he could to take in the smallest amount of the virus that was all over him. Despite his boast, he knew even Kamen Riders could be overloaded by the Bugster Virus if they were attacked by a big enough concentration.

And concentrations of the virus seemed to be all Shiro-kun and Kuro-kun _were._

Around him more of the infected people were walking closer, starting to lift their hands like claws to grab the Rider. Bruiser clenched a button inside his gloves and the knuckles let out a loud hiss of air.

Suddenly Bruiser spun in a circle. The fists on his gloves whipped out on thick chains and left little craters in the ground. As he spun they dug a round fissure in the street around the Rider. A few of the victims were braver than the others and tried to jump over it to attack him but were knocked down by the spinning chains.

It would only hold them back for a minute. Bruiser already knew it.

Maybe that would be all Kensei needed to get Kiiko to safety.

XXX

But speaking of the two, Kiiko giggled and danced away from Kensei before they’d managed to get two blocks away from the battle. “You know what, that looks way more interesting! Let’s go back there!”

He looked back at her, half-surprised and half-annoyed. “Kiiko, stop it! You’re not all right! We have to get you checked out!”

Kiiko pointed an accusing finger at him. “The hero’s not supposed to run away! Minus 100 points!”

“A hundred?! Are you craz—” Kensei started to protest, before he caught himself arguing something he didn’t even understand.

Maybe because it sounded just like the old Kiiko.

“The hero’s supposed to be ready for anything! Minus 200 points!” she giggled again. Before Kensei recovered from his surprise at her saying so absurd to try to stop her, she danced back the way they’d come. Spinning on her feet, arms held out wide at her sides.

Kensei shook his head and ran after her. Was something really wrong with her? Was she getting back at him for the way he’d been ignoring her lately or something crazy like that?

It didn’t matter, he answered himself. A group of virus-headed victims had spotted Kiiko dancing down the street their way and were running at, arms held out to attack. Kensei grabbed the first Gashat he could reach.

…and it was one he’d never seen before.

It was one with a white case, and a red trigger button and guard. On the label was a Kamen Rider, whose mask had big red lenses like a big red circle split down the middle and leaning off at the bottom on an angle. His chestplate was the same red with a silver bar down the middle, and he rested a futuristic sword with a red blade on his shoulder.

Across the top was the name: Time Express Den-O. Red on top, orange on bottom, split through the middle with a white streak. But sticking out on the end was a pair of letters, DX, written with the D higher and in gold, the X lower and in silver.

“What the hell is—” Kensei started to ask.

All of a sudden his body jerked forward. He bent at the waist.

He looked back up, his hair swept back into spikes with a thick red stripe, and an arrogant sneer on his face. “You’re not gonna look better than me this time, brat!” Kensei barked.

Kiiko stuck her thumbs in her ears and wagged her fingers mockingly at Kensei. “I _always _look better than you, scary monster Momo-chan!” She held up a device shaped like an elongated octagon, bright purple with a small black screen in the middle and a pair of big buttons on either side. A pink A button and a green B button. She stuck it into the silver mounting on a black belt she was wearing.

By then the Bugster victims were almost close enough to grab them. Neither seemed to notice as Kiiko slid an identical Time Express Den-O Gashat into her new belt buckle with it making a satisfied “**GACHAN.**” She held up another Gashat then, with a dark purple case and showing the purple monster from the train holding an equally purple shotgun in his hand. The title said Wild Bullet Dancer. “You ready for some fun, Momo-chan?” Kiiko asked.

“You’re not the only with that, brat!” Kensei laughed, producing a red Gashat with a label showing the red horned monster from the train holding an enormous red sword with both hands. “I have one of those games that’s even stronger, just you wait and….EEEEHHHHH?!” he screeched as he saw the game’s name.

Violent Sword Idiot.

“You’re already losing, Momo-chan!” Kiiko waggled her fingers at him again. “**Henshin**!”

XXX

Another victim raked their fingers down Bruiser’s back, and their condition seemed to give them inhuman strength because he could feel the attack even through his armor.

Just like the six other people who’d just gotten in a clawing hit like that.

His brother and Kiiko had to have gotten away by then. Bruiser grabbed for the double Gashat he carried, the one in the white case with Doctor Mighty XX on the label. The one the CR personnel gave him _just in case _there was a Game Syndrome outbreak. The infected people were stretching farther than he could see either way, and if that wasn’t an outbreak…

Something a lot bigger than an infected human suddenly slammed into his back. “What’ve you got there, Rider??” Shiro-kun laughed as he bounced back away from Bruiser. “Some other dumb little toy?!”

Kamen Rider Bruiser didn’t answer. It seemed as if the air had been sucked out of his lungs as the precious Doctor Mighty Gashat went spinning up out of his hand, arcing down to the mob of infected. All over, they were holding up their hands to catch it even if they were nowhere near it was about to come down.

Out of nowhere, another figure entered the battle.

It was a Kamen Rider that Bruiser had never seen before, even though he recognized the unmistakable neon green and pink of a Gamer Driver around the newcomer’s waist. Beyond that he had bright white gloves and silver boots, with a mask that big red lenses like a big red circle split down the middle and leaning off at the bottom on an angle. His chestplate was the same red with a silver bar down the middle.

And as he jumped high over the infected he held out his arm and grabbed the Doctor Mighty Gashat before they did.

“Heheh! I got the thing he lost! Beat that, brat!” he laughed, his voice a roughened version of Kensei Hidenaga’s.

“I was always a better Den-O than you, Momo-chan!” called back another voice. High-pitched and cocky, with a familiar undertone of Kiiko Mishiranu’s voice.

It was another new Rider, who looked a lot like the red one, except instead of the split red lenses there was a purple lens shaped like a giant purple V on the front of the mask, with little golden horns sticking out of the top. Over the black undersuit instead of a red chestplate, was a silvery one with purple armor over the pectorals and small circles that looked like sound amplifiers showing out on the bottom. Two flaps hung back over the shoulders, decorated with silver designs that looked a bit like wings and the claws of a dragon holding a shining pearl.

But around the Rider’s waist was the strangest thing, a device Bruiser recognized as a Bugvisor Zwei.

What was going _on_??

Was that these Riders’ names? Den-O?

Shiro-kun and Kuro-kun exchanged a confused glance of their own. Even the monsters weren’t expecting something this bizarre.

But they were adapting fast. Shiro-kun tucked in his arms and legs and rolled at the Den-O who sounded like Kiiko. “Let’s some play Virusball!” he jeered as he came closer. But Kiiko-Den-O chuckled and suddenly whipped out a pistol that roared at Shiro-kun, sending up explosions all over the roly-poly Bugster’s body.

“Hey, mind if I beat you?” she taunted. Shiro-kun rolled the other way, knocking over a few infected and yipping in pain. “I can’t hear you!!” she shouted while she chased after him.

XXX

Down the street Kuro-kun tucked in his legs and bounced like a ball across the street until he crashed into Kensei-Den-O, leaving dark smears on the Rider’s armor. He gasped and staggered into some of the Bugster’s victims from the powerful impact, who coiled their arms all over his body. Patches of writhing black and white virus matter started forming where they touched on his armor.

“Hmmph! Another dull Rider. Come over here and I’ll turn you into one of them. It won’t be painless, but it’ll be fast,” Kuro-kun frowned at his opponent.

“Dull?!” Kensei-Den-O exploded. He pulled himself away from the infected with a burst of strength and hit Kuro-kun with a ferocious slash from his short-bladed sword. “I’m at a climax from start to finish!”

Kuro-kun hit the top of a building at an angle and snapped off the corner from the great force he’d been hit with. Kensei-Den-O shouldered his way through the infected toward where the big round Bugster was coming down, their fingers dragging on his armor and forming more patches of virus.

He just kept coming, his strength too great for them even as viruses spread over his. A huge wriggling patch of virus matter was crawling over the bottom of his chestplate by the time he’d pushed his way to where Kuro-kun was about to land. The Rider wiped another patch off his mask so hard the patch hit one of the infected like a projectile and knocked him down.

“WHY—YOU—LITTLE—” Kuro-kun yelled as he came down. His face was distorted into an even fiercer frown than before. As soon as he hit the ground, Kensei-Den-O screamed and brought a downward slash on the monster’s head. Kuro-kun grunted and bulged out to the sides like in a cartoon, his feet being pushed down into the ground.

“I’ll teach you what’s _DULL_!” Kensei-Den-O screamed. An expression of fear covered Kuro-kun’s giant face. He sucked in a breath and blew out a huge cloud of smoke, stretching almost from one curb to the other. Kensei-Den-O leaned into it shoulder-first, pushing back against the awesome force that was even blowing the people who’d been infected back across the sidewalk.

It seemed like nothing could stop the Rider, though. He wrapped both hands around the grip of his sword, not seeming to notice as the precious Doctor Mighty Gashat slipped out and was blown away. He lashed out with his sword from the side and knocked Kuro-kun out of the hole where he’d been stuck. Wailing the whole way the Bugster rolled across the street and crashed into a parked car.

Kensei-Den-O held up his sword and prepared for his finisher. “**Violent Idiot, Critical Slash!**” his Driver announced.

“Hey, shut up, you!” he raged at the machine pointlessly.

But the blade in his hand was already glowing with power. He lifted level with his shoulder then brought it down in a great diagonal cut. Kuro-kun froze, the dazed look on his face the last thing there’d ever be, and popped in a fantastic explosion.

“Ha-HA! Looks like _you _were the dull one!” the Rider jeered with his enemy destroyed. He pointed his finger tauntingly at the flaming spot where Kuro-kun had met his doom.

He realized his hand was empty.

“Eeeeeheh….” he trailed off, his cockiness totally forgotten as he desperately looked around for the Gashat he’d been holding.

XXX

All the way at the end of the street, one of the Bugster victims scratched his shiny mutated head as he tried to make sense of the Gashat he’d picked up. A smoke made of crazy shifting colors started gushing from where the case touched his skin.

He made a weird gurgling noise of pain as he flung the Gashat over his shoulder as hard he could. The thing was deadly to his kind, that much was obvious even to his feeble mind.

Shiro-kun spotted the flying Gashat and launched himself at Kiiko-Den-O before the Rider had a chance to see it.

It appeared he’d underestimated the armored warrior, though. She jumped high, doing an impressive splits and the round monster passed just below her without connecting. With a giggle the Rider aimed her pistol underneath Shiro-kun and fired. He yelped from surprise as the powerful blast knocked him off the ground, and Kiiko-Den-O went into a kick that knocked him across the street.

“Nope! I get the treasure, not you! I’m the hero, after all!” she declared.

“Oh, you think you’re so—” Shiro-kun sputtered.

“What? Giving up? Too bad I can’t hear you!” Kiiko-Den-O giggled. Shiro-kun groaned and rolled forward to face her, sounding sick. Ironic.

“You were too much for me, Rider,” he sighed. “Too fast, too powerful. Especially that gun.”

“Heheh!” Kiiko-Den-O chuckled, juking back and forth, landing on one foot and then the other one. “I was a better hero Momo-chan, wasn’t I??”

Shiro-kun nodded, rolling his bulbous body forward a little in the process. “The greatest…Gamedeus himself couldn’t have stood up to that!”

“Eheh…! I don’t know what that is, but I know it’s true!” Kiiko-Den-O replied.

An ugly smile suddenly formed on the weird Bugster’s giant face. “Maybe you’ll know what _this _is!”

“Eh?”

Next thing she knew Shiro-kun gave a huge belch right in her face. One of the long tips of the purple lens on her mask cracked and broke off. Then the Rider herself was knocked off her feet, skidding across the street and covered in slimy white virus patches from his breath.

She struggled to breathe, clawing at the throat of her armor. And she didn’t notice with all her thrashing around she dropped the Doctor Mighty game.

Shiro-kun did. He braced his little legs and tossed himself high above the street, aiming to come down on the cartridge before it could be used.

“Hey, that’s cheating,” Kiiko-Den-O whined, then coughed hard. “You come back here and let me—” she sputtered and broke into another coughing fit. Kiiko-Den-O set down her gun to cover her mouth, then realized there something in her other hand: a new Gashat, a blue one with the title Seductive Rod Master, and the blue train-monster brandishing his pole.

“No fair, I’m not don—”

Suddenly her head jerked. “Passion, but no finesse,” Kiiko-Den-O said with a sigh and a shake of her head before she slipped the new Gashat into her Bugvisor.

“**Feel the passion of the rod! Surrender to the power of the rod! Wield it! Master it! SEDUCTIVE ROD MASTER!**” With newfound strength, Kiiko-Den-O pushed away the infected people trying to grab her.

There was a flash and her armor had changed, her mask now with big yellow compound eyes surrounded by a blue frame and silver horns on the sides. Thick blue and black armor covered her shoulders, a yellow bulb over the pectorals surrounded by a blue frame like the lenses on her mask.

In her hands was a new weapon, a long blue staff.

A new weapon she stabbed out and right into Shiro-kun’s soft side just a second before he hit the ground and crushed the precious Doctor Mighty game.

“What—Wait—You can’t—” Shiro-kun stammered. He tried to shake loose but something came charging across the street.

It was Kamen Rider Bruiser, big fists over his head glowing with power for a finisher. “**DynaMighty Critical SMASH!!**” growled his gear. Bruiser himself growled with frustration and spun, hitting Shiro-kun with both fists pushed together into one giant mace. He came around again, hitting the helpless Bugster one more time.

Shiro-kun went flying out of sight. A minute later there was a twinkle of light in the sky to mark his final passing.

“Just what the hell’s going on?” Bruiser asked and panted in exhaustion at the same time.

“I’d explain but you’re not my type,” Kiiko-Den-O answered him. Before he had a chance to press the point, she sat down hard and started panting herself. Obviously being covered in Game Syndrome infection was catching up to her fast.

There was no time to worry about little details. Bruiser finally grabbed the Doctor Mighty Gashat and locked it into the slots on the back of his glove like he’d meant for that entire mess of a fight. Before the infected had a chance to try to stop him, he pulled the lever on his glove.

“**Doctor Critical Punch**!” his gear said, sounding almost as tired as he felt after all of that. His big gauntlet shot off his arm straight up into the sky. As it did a trail of shining particles in every color of the rainbow spread out underneath. All round the Riders the infected groaned and collapsed on the asphalt. Their virus-shaped heads were shrinking, peeling off their bodies to reveal the groggy people underneath.

Bruiser’s strength was giving out, and he sat down too, letting his gauntlets sag onto the ground. The virus he’d been hit with it was sapping his strength even though Kamen Riders were, _mostly_, immunized to it. He’d be taking it easy for a while after being cleaned off in CR, that was for sure.

But then he saw Kiiko, changed back to normal. looking down the street at something, and turned to look himself. Carefully stepping around the recovering people, shaking his head and only seeming a little dazed, was Kensei. He still wore the Gamer Driver around his waist but he’d changed back to normal too. “Everything okay, guys?” he asked. “I feel kind of like I missed something.”

Looking his brother up and down, Kamen Rider Bruiser shut down his gauntlet and reached out a hand. Kensei gripped it and pulled Yuuma up to his feet without even thinking.

The look Yuuma gave him was a mix of concern and confusion, and he shook his head and sighed. “I _know_ I missed something,” he breathed.

A watcher in the darkness slipped as the last of the infect were getting up and recovering their bearings.

Its test was a complete success.

XXX

The coldness of the CR Ward was a little reassuring. It was familiar. Yuuma had been there to be patched up more than once after a battle with a tough Bugster.

Things were a little more unsettling this time; he’d fought with the Kensei from another universe enough times to be sure of his sincerity. But now Yuuma had seen him and the girl Kensei had come with turn into Riders he’d never heard of, and seen Kensei shrug off a virus infection that’d left Yuuma barely able to stand.

It was obviously even more serious than Yuuma had realized.

He was glad to be distracted when the door opened and in walked his sempai, Emu Hojo. Yuuma still though the doctor looked a university student who was struggling to figure out how to be a real grown-up, with those bright-colored jeans, checkered sneakers and t-shirt showing a scene from an old video game Yuuma couldn’t name on under his doctor’s smock.

“Will I live, doc?” Yuuma smirked.

To his silent relief, Emu smiled back. “We want you to stay here tonight just to be sure, but after decontamination we didn’t find anything worrying.

Yuuma nodded, but his smile was fading. “That’s good. What about Kensei and his friend?”

Emu’s expression turned serious too. “Mishiranu-san will be here for a few days recovering from her infection. She’s back to normal, at least based on the tests we took a few weeks ago, when the two of them first showed up. She might have been infected by those Bugsters you fought; that could explain her suddenly acting so strangely. It’s happened before.”

“What about Kensei?”

After he heard the question Emu’s face turned worried but he hid it quickly. “He’s fine. I’d like him to spend the night just to make sure there are no complications, but he’s already up and around. He’s got so much energy, it’s like he didn’t fight multiple Bugsters today at all.”

“But…”

The doctor looked Yuuma straight in the eye. “But there’s something very different from the vitals we took when he first arrived. He’s developed certain aspects…” he trailed off, probably realizing how worrying this sounded to the protective brother of the person they were talking about.

“Please just give it to me straight, sempai,” Yuuma requested calmly.

Emu sucked in a breath before he did. “He looks a lot…but not exactly, like he has the Patient Zero condition.”


	3. Chapter 3

It was his one-hundred and seventy-third sit-up.

Yuuma felt an urge to drum his fingers just to do _something_, but his hand was on the one-way glass in the wall of the physical therapy room and moved his hand to the wall next to him instead.

His strength was returning, and by that afternoon he’d probably be back to 100%. Kensei, though, got up from the floor and jogged across the therapy room to the treadmill in the corner. He started it up and was running all-out within a minute.

It was like the massive Bugster infection from their last battle hadn’t affected him at all.

“What does it mean?” Yuuma asked quietly.

Emu shook his head. “I’m not really sure myself. His resistance to the infection seems to come from his ability to fuse with Mishiranu-san, and take advantage of the powers she has. We still can’t really say what exactly she is, so it’s hard to say what would result from prolonged contact.”

Yuuma looked at his sempai for a second but shook his head and shifted his attention to his little brother in the other room. Kensei was running even faster, and Yuuma thought the look on his face was turning into a smile.

But that Kensei wasn’t his little brother. He was another Yuuma Hidenaga’s little brother, who came from somewhere circumstances had made him Kensei a Kamen Rider instead of him.

A better Kamen Rider than Yuuma was, and who sounded like he’d been up against a massive threat. For Yuuma, the big battle had happened before he’d ever gotten to be a Rider: his job was just to help keep things under control with the few cases of Game Syndrome that still showed up now and then.

Part of Yuuma wished he could see that other place, where his brother had fought so hard. Where Kensei had accomplished so much. It sounded like that world definitely needed its Riders.

XXX

After he made sure nobody was around, Kensei slipped out of his room and into the one next door. Kiiko lay in the bed but she opened her eyes and sat up when she saw who was coming in.

“You feeling okay?” he whispered as he sat down on the foot of her bed.

“I’m fine. You don’t have to whisper,” she replied.

He looked around, and out the window in the door, before he answered that. “We might. I haven’t told anybody what you said about this place being so…infirm?”

Kiiko nodded gently. “Like it’s about to fall apart. Even those monsters on the train said that…you believe me about the monsters on the train, right?”

Kensei smiled. “You can be silly a lot of the time,” he said, and Kiiko angrily puffed out her cheeks. “But I believe you. I mean, I don’t really remember what happened but we were still in a big fight and we still won. And you still have that thing, right? The Bugvisor?”

She nodded and slipped the device out from under her pillow. It looked exactly like the ones he’d seen while he’d been studying that some of his predecessors—generally the most evil ones—had used to activate their battle forms. Kensei guessed Kiiko was probably close enough to a “Bugster” to be able to use one, if she got the chance to.

“I don’t know what happened to the games, though,” she said. “There must’ve been games, if I changed with this…?” she trailed off, looking at Kensei as if for confirmation.

“The ‘train monsters’ probably took those when they went back,” Kensei shrugged. “Maybe if we can find them, they’ll take us home. From that story you told me it sounds like that’s what they wanted to do anyway.”

She inflated her cheeks at him again. “It wasn’t a story! Don’t you believe me?”

Kensei smiled and stroke her cheek, and her expression turned to a mixture of relief and exhaustion.

“We’ve seen things just as weird a train with monsters riding, haven’t we?” he asked her, and Kiiko nodded. “I believe you, I promise,” he said with a smile, and her face faded into a relieved smile of its own. “Do you feel ready to go yet?”

“They said I should stay a day or two,” Kiiko whispered, but smiled back in a sneaky way. “But they said I was all cleaned up already. I can go whenever you say, Kensei-kun.”

He held out his hand for her. She took it and Kensei helped her out of bed.

It had felt good for a while to actually know he was curing somebody of their Bugster infection on this world. It had been _amazing_ getting to fight monsters with Yuuma and hear his brother’s praise for all of Kensei’s skill and the cool games he had to fight with.

But he wasn’t the Kensei Hidenaga of this world, and the man he’d been fighting alongside wasn’t the Yuuma Hidenaga who’d inspired him to put on a Driver. That world, and that Yuuma, were still in trouble. Here, the big battle was over, and there were plenty of veteran Riders around who already knew what they were doing.

His old world still needed to be saved from a terrible new villain.

It was time to go home.

XXX

It was getting into the late morning and the streets were a little less crowded with the end of the morning rush to work.

Nobody paid much attention to a pair of teens walking out the side entrance to Seito University Hospital. Even if they weren’t doing much of a job of looking inconspicuous, holding hands and Kiiko jogging halfway bent over from her physical exhaustion. She wasn’t used to the physical demands of fighting kaijin, and getting covered in a Bugster infection had affected her a lot more than it had Kensei.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go right now,” he said under his breath when Kiiko rested her arm around his shoulder and caught her breath.

“No,” Kiiko gasped, and pulled herself up with her hands on both of his shoulders. “We go _now_ before you have a chance to change your mind again.”

Kensei chuckled, and Kiiko scowled. “What’s so funny?”

“You really think I might stay now?” he asked.

“I’m the trainer. I’m not supposed to let you just stay in one place. You’ll never get stronger that way,” Kiiko groaned, and slumped her face into his shoulder.

He stopped and let her catch her breath. Taking her out of the hospital like this was a mistake, but she was right, they had to do it right away. He wasn’t really sure how they’d find this monster-infested train Kiiko told him about. But she was the Navi, and it seemed like they wanted her to find them. How hard could it be?

“Hear that train bell anywhere yet?” he asked after Kiiko’s breathing stopped coming so fast.

“No.”

“Pray you do soon,” droned a voice. Kensei’s attention snapped to where it came from, and standing there was someone he recognized.

It was that weird man in the dark suit, holding the pink and black box up to his face. It whirred and snapped, and Kensei guessed it was some kind of weird camera. He turned to look at the two of them, seeming bored.

“The end of the world is coming soon,” he said. “Find a way back to the one where you’re needed.”

Kensei bristled. “I remember you. You said you were here to destroy the world! Listen buddy, that’s what a—”

“This world is only a dream that should never have lasted,” the man cut him off sharply. “By staying here you let the dream continue, and you gave a powerful evil a safe place to grow even stronger without being hunted by its true enemies. Leave this world before it collapses, and start fixing your lapse, Utsura.”

Slowly, a suspicious gaze fixed on the man, Kensei backed down. “So how do we get back to where we’re supposed to be, if that’s true?”

The man gave him an annoyed look over one shoulder. “I’m the destroyer of worlds, not your babysitter. Can’t a big hero like Kamen Rider Utsura manage a little thing like that?”

Kensei clenched this teeth in annoyance. “If I could I would’ve left already.”

“Oh, would you?” the man asked. “How many weeks have you been here? Having a pretty good time for most of it, looked like.”

“Who _are _you, anyway?!” Kiiko demanded, and Kensei was a little surprised the question wasn’t his own.

“A passing-through Kamen Rider,” the man replied, still sounding totally bored with the heavy things he was saying. “Did you forget already?”

Automatically Kensei’s hand went inside his jacket to his Gamer Driver. How could this guy know so much about what was going on and be such an asshole, and not be an enemy? He stopped himself from getting out his belt and putting it on; the guy did show any hostility. Indeed, with one last dismissive look back at them, a rippling silvery curtain of light formed between them, swept over him and disappeared leaving no trace.

“I don’t like this at all,” Kiiko whispered in Kensei’s ear.

“Why? _Is _he a monster, or something?” Kensei asked. “Do you feel any around?”

A light pink glow came over Kiiko’s eyes for a few seconds, fading into lavender and then a bright purple that lingered there for almost a minute. “Yes, I do,” she said before the glow faded from her eyes.

“Oh? Where?”

Suddenly She clamped her arms around Kensei’s body and made a terrified sob into his shoulder.

“_Everywhere_.”

XXX

“Eeerrrhg!” grunted Momo-chan as he wrestled with the latch on the door of the train car. Ryutaros and Urataros sat at a table a safe distance away.

The purple monster looked down at his cards and sniggered before he asked, “Do you have any…jacks, Ura-chan?”

“Go fish, Ryu-chan.”

“Are you two just going to sit there?!” Momo-chan roared. “Or are you going to actually do something for once and help??”

Urataros didn’t even look up. Ryutaros giggled and snatched the card off the top of the pile.

“Well?! Is that all you can do?!” Momo-chan screamed at them.

“We _did _help. It didn’t work, and getting all bruised throwing myself around the car trying to force something that can’t be forced would just ruin my style,” Urataros answered.

Momo-chan let go of the latch and took what he obviously hoped was a menacing stomp closer to the other two train-monsters. “So you’d rather just sit around like a pair of wussies waiting for the answer to come to you?!”

Urataros set down his cards, but kept a hand on top of them so his opponent wouldn’t get a chance to peek. “Momo-chan, for some people anger enhances their beauty. For you, nothing could.”

“Hehehe! Good one, Ura-chan!” Ryutaros giggled.

“Eeeghgh! OWNER! Tell these layabouts to help us break out of here already!” the red monster roared.

But the Owner just sat at his table in the corner, delicately sipping his coffee. He set it down calmly and replied, “We’ve tried everything, the power out there’s awesome enough to hold the DenLiner like it is. I suppose we’ll have to see if this Utsura’s good enough to warrant our attention after all.”

XXX

Overhead cracks were forming in the sky itself, leaking out some kind of white light or fire down into the city. Kensei held out his arm protectively around Kiiko, a silent promise not to leave her as chaos was breaking out above.

“This…I don’t even know what this is,” Kensei whispered.

“I know,” Kiiko whispered, her throat dry as a desert. “It’s terrifying.”

“Isn’t it just?” chuckled a voice that seemed to come from thin air next to them. Neither of them needed to see the face to know who it was coming from.

“Hourakou Byougen, wasn’t it,” Kensei scowled. A declaration, not a question.

Purple blobs flowed out of cracks in the street and formed into the smiling man Kensei had seen before, wearing a dark business suit painted—actually painted—with pink stripes.

He waved his hand above them, where the white cracks in the sky were slowly spreading wider, and giving off a fiery light from whatever was on the other side.

“This world’s about done for,” Hourakou said dismissively. “But that’s fine, it’s served its purpose. With the information on the old generation Bugster virus, I had a chance to experiment with my own virus type, come up with something truly…epidemic,” he said with a devilish smile.

“That’s the real reason you came here?” Kensei demanded. “To evolve your virus?”

Hourakou shrugged, unmoved by the growing anger of the young Kamen Rider. “There’s so many of you running around back where you come from! A safe place like this to run some experiments comes along? I’d be a fool not to take advantage of it! Besides, the Corrupture have evolved but our virus has been isolated to the sufferers we already have. What kind game is that where the enemies don’t get stronger to challenge the heroes?”

“You call this _a game_?!”

“You _don’t_?!” Hourakou immediately fired back. “Have you even been paying _attention_??” he asked, dissolving into a thundering laugh that seemed to shake the street, but Kensei knew it was something much, much worse.

Kiiko squeezed her friend’s shoulder. “Kensei, we have to _go_,” she whispered. “I saw way out of here. It feels like…_home_.”

Hourakou clapped his hands together. “Let’s see if you can get there before everything falls apart!” he grinned. “Time Attack Mode!!”

XXX

Kensei was off running down the street before Hourakou had even finished talking. He held onto Kiiko’s arm and dragged her behind him, running just fast enough not to end up actually dragging his friend on the ground.

“Kensei-kun…!” she gasped and dug in her feet to stop him from running. “Let’s combine. You might need me…I’m worried about what he said.”

He nodded gravely as he looked back at her. “Me too. You ready?” Kensei said and held out his hand.

Kiiko nodded and pressed her hand against his, fingers delicately aligned just so with his. A pink glow covered her body, darkening into lavender and then purple. Kiiko faded until Kensei could see through her and then flowed over his body.

And it was like Kensei could see _everything_ again. Through whole rows of buildings he could see the outline of a door, giving off an awesome power.

…But how could he just _leave_? Kamen Riders were supposed to _save_ the world, not run to someplace safe when things looked bad. Didn’t there have to be a way? Hourakou even said he’d come to that world and built up new power there. Maybe if Kensei could beat him, then—

Without warning something clamped down on his shoulder and stopped him in his tracks again.

Holding him was a red-armored robot with a triangular head and a big metal claw for a hand closed around his shoulder. Kensei didn’t recognize it, but seemed to know anyway it was Gatton, the end boss of the legendarily hard game Gekitotsu Robots.

And he wasn’t alone. Behind him was a wizard in white robes and wearing a red mask, wielding a wand with a gleaming jewel on the end. Aranbura, the wizard from Taddle Quest. A monster in blue armor with the white head of a snail sticking out of a striped collar with two tall electrodes sticking out it, wearing a black cape and white top hat. Kensei recognized that one too: it was Count Salty, the villain of the Mighty series.

“Crush him!” Salty cackled. “Crush him like a snail out of its shell!”

“_Somebody_ will be!” A huge black and green shape dropped out of the sky and came down right on top of Count Salty. The Bugster just had a chance to look up at what was causing the shadow around him and gasp dryly in horror before he exploded into a blinding storm of retro colors.

In the small crater where Count Salty had met his doom once again stood Kamen Rider Bruiser, glaring at the other two Bugster monsters. Especially Gatton, who still held Kensei’s arm tight enough for the edges of his claw to slice through the material of his shirt sleeve underneath.

The next thing Kensei knew there was a rush of air and Bruiser’s big knuckles shot off his fist on a chain. There was an ugly screeching of metal on metal and Gatton’s arm suddenly dangled loosely on Kensei’s. A look of surprise still covered the youth’s face as the rest of the robot skidded away down the sidewalk from Bruiser’s powerful blow.

Bruiser jumped to Kensei’s side. “If you’re in trouble, you’re supposed to call your big brother for help.”

“See if your science can stand up to the powers of a _wizard_!” laughed the other Bugster, who sent a jet of flame blasting from the jewel on his wand. Bruiser held up his gauntlets and deflected the flame, glancing back over his shoulder at his younger brother.

“You better put your suit on!” he yelled over the roar of the flames.

“Aniki…we can’t waste time! Look around! Everything’s about to fall apart!” Kensei protested.

Bruiser turned and nodded slowly. “This is the world I promised to protect, Kensei-kun. And I have to stay and do that, even if it is about to fall apart.”

A glittering ball of white light arced over their heads from the Bugster’s wand. If flashed and suddenly a rain of giant icicles were coming down at them.

“**En En Chambara!!**” yelled Kensei’s original Gashat. He loaded it into the Driver on his waist and pulled open the lever. Power exploded across his body and formed into a black and yellow undersuit. Red armor plating attached to his arms, his legs, a samurai helmet with a golden crescent on the forehead the finishing touch.

Immediately a katana with a green blade was in his armored hand, and in one slash he cleaved through incoming ice projectiles.

The masked wizard Bugster was eyeing them more cautiously now. In a second he wasn’t the only one there, though. Another Bugster in orange and black armor with a fighter jet’s tailfin attached to his head, a missile rack attached to one arm and a giant turbine covering the other, flew down from the sky. Vernier, the jet Bugster.

A one-armed Gatton was coming back down the street, somehow looking extremely irritated as sparks shot from the exposed wires in his shoulder.

“Target Acquired,” said Vernier.

“Ga-chan,” Gatton said as menacingly as he could, which wasn’t very much.

But striding through a cloud of smoke came another figure, one neither Rider recognized.

At first.

He had on a black and yellow undersuit with circuitry designs like Utsura’s, but the lines were flecked with black spots like some kind of disease. He wore heavy samurai armor, colored an evil blood red, with hellish flames decorating the tall rectangular shoulder plates with actual wisps of fire jumping off the designs.

Over that was silvery chest armor dominated by a black screen that said an unmistakable word in white block letters: UTSURA.

On his face he had on a grotesque parody of a Gamer Rider’s mask, with a mouth full of pointed teeth and tiny beady eyes looking out of the mask. On top they wore a wide samurai helmet with a golden crescent on the forehead, with dried drips of blood covering it.

And in one hand he wielded a sword with a giant green blade, almost as tall as he was, the sides covered in those awful disease-like dots and the front decorated with saw-like teeth. A pair of round, red and blue buttons were set in the hilt, and on the very bottom was a human skull.

The demonic Kamen Rider Utsura charged them.

“Get down!” Kamen Rider Bruiser yelled and shoved his brother out of the way. He held up his heavy gauntlets in front of himself to block the evil copy’s wild swing and was knocked through the window of a storefront.

Again the demonic Utsura charged forward, this time at Utsura himself. He gasped and lashed out with his katana to block the copy’s blade. The two weapons met in midair then bounced back with a horrible. Where the blades had connected an ugly discoloration still hung in the air, showing crackling spikes of color and rippling streams of numbers.

Utsura blinked and tried to collect himself. Things were getting even worse and reality seemed about to completely shatter. The Rider focused his linked senses and felt that same way out he’d spotted before. If he could just get there…

His linked senses screamed a warning just before something sharp dug into him, slicing down Utsura’s back like a stream of knives. He flew a few feet and landed hard on the ground. A tingle from the back of his neck, a warning of another incoming attack, was enough to shake him out of being stunned. He shoved himself over onto his back just in time to avoid the evil Utsura’s sword come cleaving down on top of him again.

XXX

Barely half an hour ago, Seito University Hospital had been operating as normal.

Now, it was if an epidemic had hit the town.

Every inch of floor seemed to be covered with sheets, people covered in crackling orange infections spaced mere inches away from each other because there were no rooms in any of the proper wards.

It was a nightmare for doctor Emu Hojo and Nurse Asuna Karino were racing through the narrow alleys between sheets and benches turned into emergency stretches, offering what care they could.

“I hoped nothing like this would ever happen again,” the doctor breathed to Asuna as he got up from tending to a young boy thrashing around in agony from his Game Syndrome infection. “What’s going _on_ out there?”

“No-one really knows yet,” Asuna answered. “Nothing from the Ministry of Health…it’s like half an hour ago everyone suddenly had Game Syndrome. Bugsters are everywhere out there all of a sudden.”

Emu looked back down the entrance hall, patients covering every inch out sight around the curve of the room and out of sight. People were even laid out on the steps of a staircase curving up to the second floor because there was just no room anywhere else for all the sufferers who were being rushed to Seito University Hospital.

It went against his doctor’s training but Emu jogged carefully through the patients to the front door, jumping back as another woman covered in flickering Game Syndrome influenza was rushed in on a gurney.

As soon as the way was clear he rushed outside, and immediately saw the web of cracks spreading across the sky, getting slowly wider while he stared up in horror.

“Emu, look!” Asuna said and suddenly turned him to face the other way. A pair of nurses at the admittance desk and a few patients with the strength to prop themselves up to see were watching a news story on one of the TV screens behind the desk. On it Kamen Rider Utsura was fighting a sword duel against an enemy who was easily pushing him further and further back, blocking the Rider’s desperate swings.

It was a monstrous parody of the young Rider who’d been helping the hospital the last few weeks. Dancing flames decorating his armor and a grinning mouth full of pointed teeth. His giant sword flashed out and knocked Utsura’s weapon away while catching Utsura on the chest and swatting him off his feet.

He looked back at the rows and rows of patients. A pair of nurses were helping a child up to lay on the counter of the admittance desk because there was no room anywhere else. All those people who needed a doctor’s care.

Emu looked up at the screen again as Utsura rolled and barely avoided his evil attacker’s sword again.

XXX

Another vicious hit and Kamen Rider Utsura was knocked to the ground again. His armor flashed and when he landed he’d reverted to regular Kensei Hidenaga again.

“What…is that guy?” he panted, clutching his chest that was still aching from all the painful slashes he’d taken from the evil Utsura. “I’ve never seen a monster like that before!”

Immediately Kensei felt like he needed to fall on the ground, shut his eyes and push his fingers to his ears. There was a blast of tingling _noise_ that covered his entire body, setting his linked senses on fire. Something extremely powerful was very nery…

“He’s Another Utsura,” a teasing voice whispered in his ear. Hourakou Byougen’s face appeared, sticking out of a tendril of purple virus matter coming out of a storm drain near him. “He’s an Utsura who wanted to have an easier life where so much less was expected of him. Where being a Kamen Rider was just a fun thing to do hanging out with his brother,” the Corrupture cooed into his ear. “_And you’ll never get off this world alive while he’s still tying you here!_”

Hourakou’s face slithered away, laughing a horrible mocking laugh that echoed in Kensei’s strengthened hearing.

He forced himself to get to his hands and knees. To grab his Dual Gashat. While the shadow of his evil copy, Another Utsura, grew larger and larger over him.

“_Stay here_,” the demonic Rider said in a dry, hollow voice and lifted his massive sword.

Kensei jumped back as it came down before it could cleave him in half. His hand was already on the knob of his Dual Gashat and he twisted it with the desperation of someone who’d just narrowly escaped death.

“**Demon Ninja!**”

The game locked into the slots of Kensei’s Gamer Driver with a “**gachan**” that made him feel like he might just have the power to win this after all. Another Utsura turned and attacked as the black-and-purple ninja armor formed and was completed by a thick head of anime hair. The evil copy’s spiked sword bit into his chest.

…and a straw dummy of Utsura’s ninja uniform hit the ground, a large cut across it.

All of a sudden a half-dozen small shuriken ricocheted off of Another Utsura’s back with sparks flying from the impacts. He turned around and growled to see Utsura standing at the corner of the street, grabbing a handful of the razor-sharp projectiles out of one hand and throwing them hard with the other.

Shuriken lodged all over Another Utsura’s chest and cracked the screen that said his name. He wasn’t even moved by the attack, seeming to glare at his counterpart with his tiny monstrous eyes. The true Utsura placed a hand on the golden shuriken emblem on his chest and the weapon—big as a hubcab—flashed and detached into his hand.

“Try and survive _this_!” Utsura exclaimed and threw the weapon. It whistled through the air and hit Another Utsura right in the chest hard enough to stick halfway into his body. Another Utsura gasped out in pain and was knocked back on his heels by the strength and weight of the weapon hitting him.

Almost immediately Another Utsura leaned forward again. “_Stay here_,” he groaned and aimed his empty hand forward. A fold of skin opened, then a stream of 8-bit skull-and-crossbones logos exploded out of his palm and plowed into Utsura.

“Aaaarrgh!” the Rider screamed as he was knocked off the ground. He managed to recover quickly and rolled himself into a somersault, hitting the edge of a building feet-first and pushing himself back off. Utsura wrenched the twin kusarigama attached to this back and sent both of them whirling out at his opponent on their long chains.

It seemed as if Another Utsura didn’t even see the weapons coming at him like a pair of deadly silver serpents. When they seemed just about to hit home he released another blast of pixelated skulls from the maw in his hand. Utsura’s chained scythes arced above and below then sank into his evil copy’s legs. Grabbing the chains Utsura pulled with all his strength.

A horrible gasping cry escaped Another Utsura’s throat as he was yanked off his feet and hit the ground hard enough to send a crack shooting five feet up the street. Utsura’s scythes pulled free and back into his hands, and standing over his duplicate, he did something unexpected.

Utsura slashed himself across the chest with one of his own weapons and sprayed a block-edged ribbon of blood onto Another Utsura.

“Eerurruk…??” Utsura’s evil copy grunted in surprise. He braced himself with his giant sword and pushed himself back up to his feet. Another Utsura started to charge, but after only a few steps he suddenly stumbled and fell to his knees with a crash. He stared up at Utsura, his fanged mouth hanging open in what Utsura kind of hoped was disbelief.

“That was a bad risk,” Kiiko’s voice hissed in Utsura’s ear.

“I know,” Utsura grunted while he clutched at his self-inflicted wound. “But the Cursed Blood can weaken even the worst enemies,” he referred to one of Demon Ninja’s most sinister game mechanics, “and it did slow him down, didn’t it?” He held his hands upright, one above the other. “Fission Jutsu.”

A black shape rushed out from Utsura’s shadow and formed itself into another purple-clad ninja Rider, curved climbing claws on his hands. Another black shape jumped out and formed another one, clutching his ninja-to. Utsura himself pulled the chains of the kusarigama on his back to ready them.

As one, they charged Another Utsura from different directions. A powerful strike from two claws across his chest knocked him spinning. Twin kusarigama hooked into his shoulder armor and yanked him face-to-face with Utsura who threw a deadly-accurate uppercut that hit him in the throat.

And the third ninja Rider vaulted over the head of the head of the last, coming down on Another Utsura with his short but _sharp _blade aimed at the wound where a giant shuriken had broken through his armor before. A ray of sunlight ran dramatically across the blade as it was stabbed into Another Utsura.

There was no combination of letters that could form the hideous sound Another Utsura made as the blade went through him. Windows in the buildings next to him cracked from the cry he let out. His entire body went rigid as the cry got even louder.

Not so loud it drowned out the words of Kamen Rider Utsura’s Driver as he prepared his finisher. “**Ninja Critical Subterfuge!**” Power hummed from his body into his joined hands, and he pointed at the ground under Another Utsura’s feet.

Utsura’s two purple-armored clones grabbed the ground and pulled it aside like bed sheets. Underneath was a pit, sharpened bamboo spikes lining the bottom.

And into the pit Another Utsura fell.

A death scream as painful as the one from being run through was what Utsura was expected as his evil twin fell down to meet his doom. Instead he only heard a hollow cry. And then silence.

Around him the Rider could hear the sounds of Bugsters smashing things and laughing at their destruction, but Utsura let himself sink to his knees and catch his breath for his second. He’d done it.

He’d beaten the opponent that Hourakou had been so proud of.

Then suddenly his sixth-sense from joining with Kiiko screamed a warning just before he was hit by something from behind, something like a dozen knives raking down his spine.

Utsura skidded across the street and almost fell down the hole he’d used to finish off Another Utsura.

But that was who he saw when he rolled over and looked up. Another Utsura. Waving his huge sword in a circle over his head. Totally unhurt despite everything Utsura had just hit him with.

“_Stay here_,” the monster copy groaned again.

XXX

Stay here.

The words felt like they were being played in slow motion in Kamen Rider Utsura’s ears.

He managed to jump to his feet and back out of Another Utsura’s melee range, but right away his linked senses buzzed painfully as they registered whole swarm of enemies closing in on him from behind.

Some kind of Bugster with gold armor and exhaust pipes sticking out of his back rode past on a motorcycle and clipped Utsura violently. Above him he could see Vernier in his orange and black armor, aiming one arm and firing off the twin missiles strapped to the back.

Utsura turned and ran. He jumped on top of a car then vaulted off and went into a somersault to make himself the smallest target possible. Behind him the car went up in flames from Vernier’s missiles.

But as Utsura came down he gasped to see another Bugster waiting for him, one with a huge red bowl-shaped head and a pair of wicked samurai swords in hand. He was called Kaiden, and he swatted Utsura out of the air with a double upward cut.

He spun crazily from the impact until he hit a wall and heard a CRACK that he hoped was the bricks. Utsura slid down onto the sidewalk, the back of his brain seeming to blaze with the combined energy of all the monsters gathering up around him. There was one especially big blip out in front of all the others he didn’t have to guess was Another Utsura.

“Kensei-kun, get up!” Kiiko’s voice sounded in his ear. “Get up, they’re coming!”

Hearing her desperation Utsura found the strength to climb up and put his hand on the hilt of his ninja-to. Another Utsura was there, and a line of other Bugsters were behind him. They came in together like a wall, trying to surround Utsura and keep him from escaping gain.

“_Stay here_,” Another Utsura groaned. He didn’t even look up as suddenly a big green fist shot out on a chain, knocking the other monsters behind him down. He _did _look up as a giant shadow came down out of the sky right on top of him.

Another Utsura was completely crushed and disappeared in a burst of jagged spears of eye-wateringly painful neon colors. The one who’d stomped out him out of existence was a familiar figure, but not because Utsura had ever seen it in person. A Kamen Rider, wearing a large bulky suit of armor with huge pink and green gloves and shoes, thick golden coils covering the space between the legs and the main body. The main body was almost more of a head, with a pair of giant eyes staring out of the Rider’s torso and curved spikes out of the shoulders. Looking out was a familiar mask with oversized eyes and pink quills swept to the side on the forehead.

“Emu-san!” Kensei gasped in relief. “Am I glad to see you!”

Kamen Rider Ex-Aid nodded at the acknowledgement. “We can’t leave you out here defending the patients all by yourself. All Kamen Riders have a duty.”

The familiar shape of Utsura’s brother racing up, retracting the chain on his fist as he came, was a bigger relief than he could ever remember feeling. “Catch your breath, Kensei-kun,” Bruiser panted. “We need you at 100%. It’s insanity out here.”

But all of a sudden Another Utsura reappeared out of thin air, waving his sword and groaning his regular chant. “_Stay here_.”

Ex-Aid gasped in surprise but hit the evil copy with his suit’s giant fist. It went right through Another Utsura, making him explode into shards of color.

Right away another Another Utsura reappeared running at the genuine article, fanged mouth hanging open. Bruiser tackled him and wrestled him to the ground. Behind the other two Riders the Bugster army Bruiser had knocked down a minute ago had gotten up and were getting closer to attack.

“Get out of here, Kensei!” Bruiser yelled. Another Utsura kicked him off, then charged the real Utsura while shooting off his pixel bone projectiles. Utsura slipped a round object into his hand and smashed it against the ground, sending up a cloud of smoke.

Another Utsura rushed into the cloud, swinging his sword wildly and not seeming to worry about hitting his target with a weapon so large. A few seconds later the smoke blew away, but there was no sign of his enemy. He turned around and saw Bruiser and Ex-Aid coming up behind him, fists raised.

“Your opponents are us,” Ex-Aid challenged him.

The monster-Rider launched himself at them, his Bugster soldiers running up from behind to join the attack.

XXX

A few blocks away Kensei collapsed against a wall, his armor breaking down and leaving him a normal, powerless teenager again.

As he looked down at his feet thin white cracks were forming, like the bigger ones that were spreading to fill the whole sky. The whole world really was falling apart. Kensei slumped down against the corner of a building and sighed.

“Is that what you’re going to do for the end of the world?” a sharp voice asked. Kensei turned his head to where it came from, and saw the strange man from before, the one with the pink box hanging off his neck.

“Who the hell are you?” Kensei demanded. “You said were here to destroy the world…did you do this?!” He threw himself at the man, who easily sidestepped his exhausted attacker like he’d seen Kensei coming at him an hour before.

“A passing-through Kamen Rider,” he replied casually, but he tossed a business card at Kensei. It read Tsukasa Kadoya – Destroyer of Worlds. “I think in this world I’m supposed to be a great gamer too, but I have bigger things on my mind than something as childish as video games.”

“_Hey!_” Kiiko yelled right in Kensei’s ear, but he was sure Tsukasa couldn’t hear her.

Tsukasa walked past where Kensei was slumped on the ground, stepping around him without even looking down at him. “Stand,” Tsukasa said in boredom, finally glancing back at Kensei as he walked past.

“I can’t. Nothing I do works,” Kensei breathed. “He’s supposed to be me, but he’s unstoppable…”

Suddenly Tsukasa grabbed him by the back of his collar and yanked him up. “Kamen Riders aren’t allowed to give up,” he said, sounding more annoyed than worried about the scene of destruction taking place. He let go and Kensei fell face-down into the dirt. “Or feel sorry for themselves. Everyone’s depending on them.”

Kensei pushed himself up and managed to sit on his knees. “Some help you are,” he muttered.  
“I don’t help, I’m the destroyer of worlds,” Tsukasa replied, turning away from Kensei again. He tossed something over his shoulder that bounced once and skidded the rest of the way until it bumped into Kensei’s knee. It was a Rider Gashat, but with a blank label and a dull grey case.

“Are you making fun of me?!” Kensei found the energy to yell at Tsukasa’s back. “What am I supposed to do with this??”

Tsukasa looked back. “You said your weapons are no good. Make a new one.”

Picking up the Gashat, Kensei looked down at it trying to figure out what Tsukasa was trying to tell him. If Tsukasa _was_ trying to tell him anything.

“You better figure it out fast,” Tsukasa said. “Looks like those friends of yours are in trouble.” An explosion ripped out as Another Utsura’s sword connected with Bruiser, who was knocked flying. The force of the blow was so intense Kensei was almost knocked on his back by it.

Kensei looked down at the blank Gashat again, and was so surprised to feel a tingling in his palm that he almost dropped it. The circuit panel on the top crackled and blips of blue light raced down the maze of barely-visible twisting lines.

Seeing those lines made him think of the maze of lines, stops and interchanges on the maps of city train routes. Those made him think of what Kiiko told him about the DenLiner, the ultimate train, so powerful it traveled through time instead of around a city. And the power of the DenLiner made Kensei think of the sharp tingle in his hand as he held the blank Gashat. Did he have some kind of power he didn’t realize, one that might awaken this game into something that could give them the advantage over Another Utsura?

That was the important thing, though, wasn’t it, beating Another Utsura. The real world where Hourakou had already escaped back to, after becoming even more powerful. He had to be stopped, and it was a Kamen Rider’s duty to stop evil.

A Kamen Rider like the one called Utsura.

His hand filled with green and purple static, covering the Gashat and sending a feeling of needles shooting up Kensei’s arm and in a wave back over his brain. Kiiko’s voice screamed in pain and Kensei was about to scream out himself before it suddenly stopped. When he recovered from the sudden shock Kensei looked down, and the game Tsukasa had thrown to him had changed.

The case had become a bold silver, and like when he’d first touched it tiny blips of light raced along the paths of the circuit panel on top. The label had filled in too, showing a bullet train coming straight at him, the title “Train Tracker” stenciled in above it.

“Kensei-kun, how did you do that?” Kiiko asked him.

“I have no idea,” he said. “You’re the Navi, aren’t you the one who explains things?”

Tsukasa squinted at him, and Kiiko’s voice whispered quietly in his ear. “You don’t have to talk out loud for me to hear you.”

A whir and click came from the strange camera around Tsukasa’s neck. “Wonder how that’ll come out,” he muttered to himself, then met Kensei’s perplexed gaze. “Wait are you waiting for? Don’t you think you should _use _that new game you just gave yourself?”

“Why did you have this?” Kensei asked quietly. “How did you know to give it to me?”

Tsukasa glanced down the street, where Kamen Rider Ex-Aid pulverized Another Utsura with a punch from his big fist, only for the evil duplicate to just reappear out of thin air again. He looked back at Kensei, and asked, “Do you know how trains work?”  
“…what?” Kensei asked.

“They leave without you if you take too long getting to the station,” Tsukasa answered snidely. “You’d better hurry if you don’t want to be left behind! You don’t want to still be here when I destroy this world…Decade doesn’t take riders.”

“Kensei-kun, let’s go,” Kiiko’s voice whispered to her friend. “I don’t like him, and things are getting even shakier! If we don’t get home right away we probably never will!”

Giving Tsukasa Kadoya a cautious glare, Kensei got up and ran past him. Tsukasa watched him go, but then looked up at the sky.

“I hope you were watching, because I finished your stupid little errand,” he said.

XXX

Both of the Kamen Riders threw punches with their heavy fists at the same time, but Another Utsura seemed to be learning to anticipate their attacks. He held up his wide-bladed sword in front of him and dug in his feet as their punches hit the flat of his weapon.

He suddenly whirled it onto fastening on his back then fired at both Ex-Aid and Bruiser with blasts of 8-bit skulls.

“_I’ll stay here!_” Another Utsura said, his groan turned into an angry roar. “_Here I’m a hero! Everyone respects me! Why should I go back and struggle?!_”

“Because that’s heroes do!” yelled a confident voice in reply. “They don’t sit on the sidelines, or worry about their reputations. They fight because peace is the greatest treasure in the world. And it’s been great fight with you, aniki…but I have a world that needs me after all.”

“That was a great defiant speech to the end boss, Kensei-kun,” Kiiko said in his mind, voice a little shaky with emotion and he felt a pride there that wasn’t his own.

Ex-Aid tapped Bruiser on the shoulder. “Is that what you’ve been teaching him?” the veteran Rider asked with a chortle.

Bruiser shook his head. “Think he learned that on his own.”

Another Utsura growled and took a menacing step his way. Kensei only triggered his new Gashat. “**Henshin.**”

The voice of the cartridge came to life with one of their usual bombastic activation announcements. “**Train Tracker! Zoom down the rails! Make the best time! You’re a national industry! Track! Track! Track! Train Tracker!**” Kensei slammed the eager game into the primary slot in his Gamer Driver. A wave of rippling power traveled up to his head and down to his toes. Strange, but refreshing, familiar. Like something he knew he could trust.

Armor covered his body, first his usual black and yellow undersuit, then Train Tracker’s title screen opened over him and a Gamer shaped like a bright silver bullet train coasted out, the tracks forming in front of it and fading behind as it swooped around Kamen Rider Utsura’s body.

The train separated and its cars attached themselves to Utsura’s undersuit. The rear car folded forward and attached to him as leg armor. Its middle car split in two and the pieces slid down Utsura’s arms to cover his wrists, leaving trails shaped like little train tracks down his arms, and blinking crossing warning lights attached to his shoulders.

The engine car folded forward then and dropped over his shoulders forming a backpack with an eight-way train crossing like a railroad turntable on it. The front end of the engine car dragged slowly down over Utsura’s forehead and leaving train track markings on it before the front of the car locked in over his chestplate.

“_You’ll never leave! We’ll never leave!_” Another Utsura shrieked at the true Rider.

“I have to,” Utsura replied, his throat tightening.

Bruiser dragged himself to is feet and took a step to follow Another Utsura as the monster rushed at his little brother. Behind him he heard a chorus of growls and curses as the lesser Bugster monsters they’d been fighting were recovering and gathering for another attack. Ex-Aid patted him on the shoulder with one big pink fist.

“Go help your brother with his fight,” Ex-Aid advised him. “That’s where you belong, Yuuma-san.”

“Can you handle so many by yourself?”

Ex-Aid chuckled, then said something Bruiser had heard him say so many times. “I’ll clear this with no continues!”

Then he ran the other way with huge stomping steps. Bruiser turned away and ran after his brother’s evil twin.

XXX

Another Utsura’s beady little eyes flashed and glowing eyeball projectiles shot across the distance. The true Utsura ducked but suddenly the train crossing on his back unfolded out to twice its length, then to Utsura’s amazement spun like a rotor and batted Another Utsura’s projectiles away.

While he was bent over and Another Utsura was still caught by surprise that his attack failed, Utsura himself opened a ring of icons. His old swords from En En Chambara spun past, the fishing rod, the torches from Aqua Beat.

But he hit the icon that came after that, one showing a weird sword with railroad tracks running from the hilt up to the tip of the blade. In the crossbar were a pair of large buttons like on his other weapons, these ones red and blue like a crossing’s warning lights. Utsura pulled his hand back out of the icon and his fingers were wrapped around the hilt.

“**Gashacon Railer!**” Utsura brought it up and blocked the giant sword of his evil copy, stopping it before the teeth had a chance to cleave through his skull. On the blade the disease spots seemed to be swirling around angrily as if looking forward to the chance to get inside him and spread.

“_I’ll bury you here!_” the monster growled.

“I didn’t come this far to ditch my quest now!” Utsura yelled back, and he thought he heard Kiiko’s squee in his ear. “Let’s play,” he added and suddenly lashed out with a kick. His foot connected with Another Utsura’s stomach and then sharp wheels on the bottom spun, cutting into the monster. Another Utsura jumped back, growling like a wild animal in pain. He jumped at Utsura with his barbed sword.

The Rider drummed his hand on the buttons of his sword in a quick code—red, blue, blue, blue—then slashed the Gashacon Railer with all his might. Its blade with the engraved railroad tracks expanded as it swung out at Another Utsura, a transparent image of a freight train shooting down it and plowing into him before Another Utsura could get close enough for his attack to connect. The evil copy screamed out in pain and went flying from the powerful attack, and his barbed sword went spinning out of sight.

He rolled again and again, over a street full of fiery white cracks that only grew even wider as Another Utsura painfully out the force of his originator’s powerful attack. But as soon as he stopped he jumped back with terrible furry showing even on the monstrous parody of Utsura’s mask. He held up his clawed hands and something like green fire jumped out of his palms, with the 8-bit skulls from his earlier attacks growing up and shrinking back of sight inside it.

When it cleared Another Utsura had a new weapon, a fishing pole with a handle made of some kind of warped black wood, the hook on the end with curved barbs down its length. He started whirling it around his head to make a new attack.

“He’s going to try to catch you like a fish??” Kiiko asked in loud disbelief.

“Quiet down, I have an idea but I need to concentrate!” Utsura replied. A pair of train tracks formed underneath Utsura’s feet, wheels on his shoes braced around the rails.

Another Utsura wasn’t waiting for him to finish whatever he was planning, though. He cast with his fishing pole and sent the giant hook flying at Utsura’s arm. There was a crunch as the hook punctured the metal around his arm and the smaller barbs dug. Grinning even more evilly, Another Utsura yanked hard, reeling his prey in.

But behind him a dark shape raised huge fists over its head then brought them down between Another Utsura’s shoulders with a sound like a thunderclap. The monster’s mouth opened but no sound could be heard over the echo of the incredible downward punch. Another Utsura’s grip on his fishing pole weakened for an instant and it was grabbed away by his attacker.

Kamen Rider Bruiser held the unusual weapon in his gauntlets and snapped it in half. But as he did, small white cracks leaking the same white light as the ones in the sky and the street were forming across his armor, even in the eyes of his mask.

His inhuman face somehow looking even more enraged, Another Utsura grabbed Kamen Rider Bruiser. Four grey tentacles exploded out of his back, ending in paint brushes with metal hooks instead of bristles. They dug into Bruiser’s back while one tentacle with a nozzle on the end sprayed dark red _something _right into the eyes of his mask.

But he wiped it away with one hand and slammed his fist into Another Utsura’s face, gritting his teeth to ignore the pain at the same time. “Now, Kensei! NOW!” he yelled before he knocked Another Utsura down with a single gigantic punch to the jaw, both armored fists linked together. The demonic parody of a Kamen Rider jumped right back up and grappled with Bruiser.

“Kiiko, I’m counting on you to help me find a weak spot,” Utsura whispered before he pumped his legs and skidded down the train tracks he stood on.

“You don’t have to say it out loud, Kensei-kun,” her voice replied gently. “I’m always here.”

“Yes,” he said, but he could feel a little jump of surprise from her presence, since he finally said it only in his mind. “I know.”

Utsura leaned forward and the wheels in his feet were picking up speed. He went up into a loop, but hardly even noticed while he was tapping out another code on his weapon. Blue, red, red, blue. The image of a luxury passenger train formed on the blade.

Meanwhile Another Utsura threw Bruiser off him and turned to aim both hands at his other opponent. He filled the air with pixelated bones jetting from the orifices in his palms. Train tracks curled through the space between him and the true Utsura, guided by the Rider’s mind. They were blown to tiny bits of metal but Utsura was unhurt.

And he was going so fast he was zooming down the tracks as almost nothing but a silvery blur.

“There, Kensei-kun…do you see it?” Kiiko asked, so quiet it was like she was afraid she might be wrong about what she was telling him.

“Yes, I do,” he replied as he spotted the bright blip on Another Utsura’s chest right in the middle of the screen with his name. He got to the top of a sharp drop in the track but leaned right into it and went even faster as he came down.

Seeing how fast the true Utsura was coming, Another Utsura’s mouth actually dropped open in surprise and he gasped before turning and trying to make a run out of the way. He never got the chance: Bruiser smashed his fist into his face, then grabbed Another Utsura and held him in a hammerlock. It was something he could probably only keep up for a few seconds, but then Utsura rode the rails right into him.

He stabbed the Gashacon Railer straight up against the weak point Kiiko’s powers were showing him, and carried the villain off the ground as he sped down the tracks. More train tracks formed out of the air, wrapping around Another Utsura’s arms and legs like chains.

“Looks like you’re just in time to catch your train!” Utsura yelled and the little ghostly see-through train formed on his sword took off right into Another Utsura’s chest. The engine exploded and left a darkened crater. Passenger cars one and then the other, blowing the wound even deeper both times. The last car punched right through Another Utsura’s torso and exploded behind him. “It’s time to end this,” Utsura said as he looked into the terrified face of his dark side.

The tracks curved up carrying both of them into the sky. Utsura tapped in one more cored on his weapon—red, red, red, red—then dropped his enemy over the edge.

At the same time his backpack with the eight-way crossing on it popped off and fell to the ground even faster than Another Utsura. Tracks unfolded from the junction just as the villain landed on top of it with a CRACK.

“**Tracker Critical Crossing!**” Utsura Driver announced at the top of a hill. Utsura came down with blazing speed with the track he was riding on connected to one of the ones leading to the junction where Another Utsura was on his knees. Utsura shot through, hitting with his sword so fast it felt like the blade had gone right through its targets body without hitting anything solid at all.

The track Utsura was on looped around connected to another one, sending him at the helpless Another Utsura from another direction. Again the Gashacon Railer went right through him. Again Kamen Rider Utsura rode the tracks around to come at even greater speed. That time Another Utsura saw nothing at all but felt the bite of his likeness’s sword as it pierced his body.

“It didn’t have to be like this,” Another Utsura gasped. “There would’ve been a payoff to the struggle…”

But Utsura didn’t listen, and only skated down the rails past the cloud of exploding colors that marked his dark side’s passing. That time he felt sure there’d be no coming back from that one.

He didn’t look at it for long. Instead he looked around for where Bruiser had ended up and saw the Rider leaning against a building with one hand. Utsura skated over to him but stopped when he saw the glowing white cracks all over his brother’s armor. Bruiser awkwardly pulled the Gashat out from the back of his glove and his armor flickered away.

“Nice job, Kensei,” Yuuma panted and smiled at him, giving a weak thumbs up. “That new game of yours is really powerful.” Even without his armor, there were little white cracks glowing all over his arms, his face, even creeping into his eyes.

“Yuuma, I—” Utsura said and started reaching out for him, but Yuuma held up a hand to stop him.

“It’s okay, Kensei-kun,” he said with a very, very tired smiled. “It’s time for all this to end, and that means me too. It was amazing getting to save the day with you, all these times. The last one was the most amazing of all.”

He pushed his Mighty vs. DynaMighty Gashat into Utsura’s hands before there was a chance to protest. “Go now, Kensei,” Yuuma breathed, white light even seeping out of his mouth then. “Go before it’s too late…your friends still need you.”

“I’ll never forget this, aniki,” Utsura said and his voice cracked horribly.

“Maybe your Yuuma will get to end up a Kamen Rider too,” Yuuma said with a last little smile. “Make sure you tell him he’ll never be as good a Rider as you are.”

Utsura choked while he held onto the game. “Yuuma…”

“Go now, Kensei…go!” Yuuma said, white light pouring out of his eyes and mouth as he did. Utsura turned and skated away as fast he could down the train tracks he created. There was no more time to say goodbye, and watching Yuuma disappear was too horrible for him to think about a second time. Almost the entire sky had turned white as the world kept breaking down. Utsura followed a warm tingle in his mind like an arrow to the exit Kiiko had helped him find before.

A few of the Bugster monsters he’d seen before were on the way, but they were already dissolving away along with the rest of the world. A blue one with shock absorbers on his shoulders tried to catch up to Utsura on a bike, but he knocked the monster down with a swat from the Railer. He was in no mood for something so ridiculous.

But over his shoulder he saw a battle still raging even while the ground and sky were disappearing. Kamen Rider Ex-Aid stood in his mech-armor, knocking down Bugster monsters who kept getting up and coming after him as if they didn’t even see the destruction around them. Maybe they _couldn’t_. Ex-Aid spotted him, and pumped one fist encouragingly before he threw himself back into the fight.

The city crumbled all around the young Rider, and through the white glow a shower of colors stood out in sharp contrast. He skated down the rails toward it, toward a hole in the middle of all the white blinking different colors that honestly seemed like an emergency beacon the closer he got.

Finally Utsura jumped off the rails and through it, landing to his surprise in middle of a train car. There was a pulling in his mind and Kiiko was sitting on the floor next to him, panting for breath.

“Don’t worry Kensei-kun, they’re friendly,” she managed to say.

“What?” he asked, then realized that a horned red monster was kneeling down, its mouth inches away from his face. He planted his hand on the monster’s face and shoved, sighing while pulling out his Gashat. There was no energy left in him after everything that’d happened that day.

Behind him the monster made an angry sputtering as he got off the floor. Kensei just looked out a window into the void, and the last thing he thought he saw before the train they were in started movie was seeing a Kamen Rider, in magenta and black armor with dark green eyes, performing a jump kick into the heart of the white oblivion outside.

Then everything was gone.

XXX

The taste of over-roasted coffee from the beverage service still in his mouth, Kensei stepped numbly through the DenLiner’s door and somehow wasn’t surprised at all to find himself in the main lobby at Seito University Hospital. He glanced back over his shoulder and only saw the parking lot through the automatic glass doors.

“That really happened, didn’t it?” he asked Kiiko.

“The DenLiner, the Imagin, all those battles with your brother…I saw that too, Kensei-kun,” she replied and put a hand over his.

“But look at that,” he said, motioning with his head at one of the monitors. “The date was weeks ago…it’s like we didn’t even leave.”

She took him by the hand and started down to the elevators, out of the way of everyone rushing around the front room to the hospital. Kensei stood expressionless as took him into one and tapped in the code to take them to the secret basement. She took his hand again to lead him out into the CR Ward.

The DoReMiFa Beat machine in the corner was blasting some pop song Kensei hated as Doku and Yoshoku tried to match the incoming signals on opposite sides of the cabinet. On the screen Poppy Pipopapo—the real one, not the chibi mascot on the game’s marquee—was dancing around grinning in response to their input.

Dr. Hiiro Kagami was sitting at the main meeting table, a plate with a slice of marble cake on it in front of him. Probably celebrating another successful surgery. On the other side sat Emu Hojo himself, leaning over the table with his eyes glued to the game on his PortPlay. He grimaced at something on the screen before it blurted out GAME OVER. Emu dropped the system on the table and leaned with a sigh, then he spotted Kiiko and Kensei.

“Ah, Hidenaga-san! Mishiranu-san!” Emu called with a smile. His expression turned serious when noticed Kensei’s face. “Are you okay, Hidenaga-san?”

Doku and Yoshoku leaned back into the main room, ignoring their own game when they heard Emu. Even Poppy stopped dancing on the screen and pressed her face closer to see what was going on.

“I’m okay, I’m just…been thinking about a lot of stuff just now,” Kensei sighed.

“Well, if you’re sure,” Yoshoku said, but his eyes lingered on Kensei in concern for a few more seconds.

“You should rest,” Hiiro said flatly. “You’re still in recovery, and you have another physical coming up to track your progress.”

Kensei nodded, and after looking for a few more seconds to be sure he was all right everyone returned to what they were doing. Kiiko gently took Kensei downstairs and laid him out in the bed they used for Game Syndrome patients.

“Take it easy down here for a while, all right?” she suggested.

“It’s like they didn’t even know I was gone,” Kensei said.

“Kensei-kun,” she said. Slowly, quietly, but her voice rising. “Maybe it’s because they knew you’d be back when they needed you.”

He looked down at the Mighty vs DynaMighty Gashat still in his hand, all the color gone from its label and case. A crack that made Kensei’s skill crawl for some reason ran from the top left to bottom right corners of its circuit panel. “Yeah, too late to back out now, huh?”

“No,” Kiiko said, smiling. “Because you’re Kamen Rider Utsura, and they know they can always count on him to be around when they need him.”

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

He cupped his hand around hers.

XXX

And in a dark, safe place on Kamen Rider Utsura’s world, a dark intelligence released a pustule containing its precious cargo.

_Life_ streamed out, down his consciousness to every cell of his being.

It was a strange, nearly painful feeling. Every bit of him shook with life. Before, they had been powerful. Dangerous. But now…

Now, the Corrupture could _spread._

**see You Next game**

XXX

**Well that was a bit of an odyssey for me, and I apologize if this last chapter especially was a long read. I’ll be taking a little vacation from my writing efforts, let the creative juices refill before coming back to make more KR Utsura.**

** Happy holidays, everybody!**


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